CBS and DTU join forces to overcome societal challenges

Copenhagen Business School (CBS) and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) establish a strategic collaboration on master programmes and executive master programmes, student projects and joint research projects. Increased interdisciplinarity boosts Denmark's competitive power and provides better options to contribute to solving some of our grand societal challenges.

12/17/2020

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A new strategic partnership between CBS and DTU is to enhance the relationship between the two universities in terms of education, research and innovation. The two universities will contribute to Denmark’s position as frontrunner in the digital and green transition by educating graduates together and devise research-based solutions across academic environments. The ambition is to boost Denmark's competitive power and provide better options to contribute to solving some of our grand societal challenges. The collaboration is focused on joint initiatives within areas such as digitalisation, technology, sustainability and green transition and will become a reality over the course of 2021.

Per Falholt, Chairman of DTU’s Board of Governors, says about the collaboration, “In order to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals we have to collaborate across universities and with the business community and authorities to make research and innovation into new concrete solutions. Increasingly, companies demand graduates with an eye for both technology and business so by merging DTU’s technology competences with CBS’ business competences we can bring the various strengths of the universities in terms of research and education into play.”

Torben Möger Pedersen, Chairman of the CBS Board of Directors, says, ” Among the Danish universities, CBS and DTU deliver most graduates for private-sector companies.  These companies need graduates with strong interdisciplinary competences in technology, innovation, economics and leadership. We need joint research efforts to deliver solutions to the grand challenges and possibilities presented by the digital transformation and green transition to the Danish business community."

According to both chairmen this new partnership is a brilliant example of how the ambitions of an increased collaboration between the Danish universities can be realised. These ambitions were recently announced as 4 goals and 14 initiatives by Universities Denmark and they all aim at an increased collaboration. Simultaneously, the chairmen expect the initiative to have a positive effect on the government’s new research strategy to achieve the climate ambitions and the green transition.
 

What is the collaboration about? 


•    Collaboration on master programmes
Students will be able to take a ‘technology semester’ at DTU or a ‘business semester’ at CBS as part of their master studies. Students completing such a semester will receive a joint diploma from CBS and DTU.

•    Joint executive master programmes
Additionally, CBS and DTU wish to establish two new joint executive master programmes in Green Transition Management and Digital Transformation Management. The two initiatives within the continuing education area have each their own focus but will both offer courses within the subjects of digitalisation, technology, business community and society. In contrast to classic MBA studies, these executive masters can be structured flexibly in terms of execution and content and this will meet the demand of the business community.

•    Student project collaboration

The master programme collaboration is supplemented by several large, joint and credit-bearing projects the students can join. In addition, CBS and DTU will launch a new joint grand challenge where a group of CBS and DTU students can work with large societal challenges such as green transition, artificial intelligence or pandemic control. The projects are created in collaboration with the business community.

•    Joint research projects
CBS and DTU will also boost the joint research efforts, particularly research contributing to the green transition. In the near future the universities will identify the areas where they can apply jointly for large national and international research funds.

Read more about CBS here

Read more about DTU here

The page was last edited by: Sekretariat for Ledelse og Kommunikation // 12/17/2020