Sustainability Director - KU Science - Netværksledelse

The university alliance ‘STRIVE U.’ (Sustainable Transition through Interdisciplinary Vision and Education at the University) funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, seeks to appoint a visionary and experienced Director from 1 October 2026 to 31 August 2032.

We are looking for an energetic and ambitious Director to lead and serve as the driving force together with a steering group, thereby supporting all eight Danish universities and the University of the Faroe Islands.

The successful applicant should be motivated by working closely with researchers, educators, students, administrative staff and external stakeholders in an inclusive and highly collaborative manner and with ambitions to establish STRIVE U. as an alliance qualifying, accelerating, and scaling the transition of the Danish and Faroese university sectors towards more interdisciplinary, sustainability-focused and cross-institutional scopes of education.

About us

The STRIVE U. alliance consists of the following partners: University of Copenhagen, Aarhus University, Technical University of Denmark, University of Southern Denmark, Aalborg University, Copenhagen Business School, Roskilde University, IT University of Copenhagen and the University of the Faroe Islands. The alliance secretariat will be at the University of Copenhagen.

The overall mission of STRIVE U. is to facilitate an interdisciplinary university alliance, focusing on sustainability in education, enabling bottom-up education development and equip and encourage university students and staff to become sustainability change agents. STRIVE U. will be organized around three key initiatives:

• “The Alliance” – a national collaboration between universities, where a joint Steering Committee coordinates efforts, gathers experiences, and sets the direction for the development of sustainable, interdisciplinary education.
• “The Greenhouse” – a fund that supports concrete teaching projects, where instructors and students can develop and test new interdisciplinary courses and forms of collaboration in practice.
• “The Pollinators’ Platform” – a learning and networking platform with courses and seminars that builds staff capacity and ensures that experiences from the projects are shared and embedded across the entire university sector.

STRIVE U. is funded by a six-year grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, and will be launched on 1 September 2026. The Director will play a proactive role in establishing and developing STRIVE U. from its very beginning. This will include putting together a small secretariat and setting up an administrative framework for the full STRIVE U. funding programmes.

The position

The Director holds the overall operational responsibility for STRIVE U., and forms the foundations to fulfil the ambitions of the initiative, and will lead the partners’ joint efforts to build a unique collaboration to strengthen interdisciplinarity among students, thereby accelerating the green transition. The Director will represent STRIVE U. externally together with the chair of the Steering Committee, develop and maintain good working relations with all partners and stakeholders, and serve as the primary liaison to key stakeholders, the Advisory Board, and the Steering Committee, ensuring that activities remain aligned with STRIVE U.’s overarching goals. Furthermore, the Director will lead continuous evaluation and development of the STRIVE U. initiative, with the aim to extend and scale beyond the project’s direct impact.

The Director will play a pivotal role in STRIVE U., working in partnership with all participating universities and the administrative team in the secretariat.

The tasks will include – but are not limited to:

• Developing the administrative framework and processes for STRIVE U., including overall responsibility for all activities in the programme.
• Managing the administrative team in the secretariat, incl. coordinating tasks with the nine universities.
• Planning and participating in Steering Committee and Advisory Board meetings and follow-up.
• Responsible for providing annual reports on STRIVE U. activities and progress to the Committee on Educational Policy under Universities Denmark.
• Overseeing the administrative management of the STRIVE U. grant and the reporting to the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
• Point of contact for the stakeholders of the alliance partners, including the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
• Facilitating communication, dissemination of activities and results from STRIVE U. to a wider audience.

Our expectations

We expect that you will:

• Have an academic degree at PhD level, preferably with well-established research experience within sustainability and education.
• Have substantial transferable/relevant experience in a management role, preferably from a university, and have an involving approach to leadership.
• Have a proven ability to interact effectively with staff at all levels and with a wide range of internal and external contacts, commanding respect and dealing with highly complex issues.
• Speak and write English fluently (non-Danish applicants will be required to demonstrate Danish skills at conversation level).
• Have experience with managing budgets and executing project deliverables.
• Work independently and in a structured manner and keep an overview of ongoing issues, challenges, and opportunities.
• Be proactive, flexible, have a solution-oriented mindset and excel in collaborating and creating networks and relationships across professional groups.

Salary and employment conditions

We offer an interesting and challenging job, covering a very broad range of responsibilities. The successful applicant will get the opportunity to build and develop a unique educational programme across a wide range of university partners.

The position is as a senior executive officer with responsibility for personnel in accordance with the Collective Agreement for Academics in the Danish State. It will be possible to negotiate additional supplements based on qualifications. The fixed-term position is full-time, and the average working hours are 37 hours per week.

Your employment will be at the Faculty of Science, the University of Copenhagen, Bülowsvej 17, 1870 Frederiksberg C.

The application process

If you are interested in the position, please send an electronic application with attachments (incl. CV and relevant documentation for your academic degree) via the Job Portal (click on the link “APPLY FOR THE POSITION” at the bottom of the advertisement) no later than 5 August 2026, 23:59 GMT +2.

Interviews will take place during weeks 34 and 35. We seek to reflect the diversity of society and welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of personal background.

Further information

You can read more about STRIVE U. here.

Additional information about the position is available upon request from Associate Dean for Education, Professor Andreas de Neergaard by email adn@science.ku.dk or telephone +45 2443 4331.

The University of Copenhagen gives its approx. 10,000 employees the opportunity to fully utilise their talent in an ambitious, informal environment. We ensure a traditional and modern framework for education and independent research at a high international level. We seek answers and solutions to common problems and make new knowledge accessible and useful to others.

Denne stilling er publiceret af KU SCIENCE FAK. SEK. via jobnet.dk