/ DK universities on social media (Twitter)

Twitter is increasingly being used, also in science and education communication, where institutions such as Harvard University has 1.3M and Cambridge University has 600+ followers. Twitter is well suited to reach a large audience with clear and short messages a allowing you to get instant feedback from customers and potential clients.

It seems as if Danish universities have vastly different strategies, when it comes to their online social media presence on social media specifically on Twitter. By tallying the number of followers and tweets on their Twitter platforms a few interesting points arise:

• – Aarhus University (AU) has been most successful in building a strong follower base
• – Technical University of Denmark (DTU) is also performing well with more followers than University of Copenhagen in spite of having roughly 50% staff (FTE) – a good potential follower base.
• – University of Copenhagen (KU) is comparably not very active with only about 2500 tweets compared to 8500 of AU. KU managed to have just over one follower pr. staff at the university.
• – University of Southern Denmark (SDU) is by far the most active on twitter with 15000 tweets, but have been less successful in turning these to followers, limiting the reach of the many tweets.
• – Copenhagen Business School (CBS) is overall getting most value pr. tweet with 4.8 followers pr. tweet and 4.2 followers pr.  staff (FTE) at the university.
• – IT University of Copenhagen (ITU) is a smaller institution with less than 500 staff (FTE). It has managed to turn active Twitter presence into a broad reach with more than 13 followers pr. staff (FTE).
• – Roskilde University (RUC) have fewer followers and is less active, it does however manage to turn tweets into followers taking the university’s size into consideration.
• – University of Aalborg seem have chosen other paths of communication with 64 followers and 0 tweets.
• However, all Danish universities are lagging far behind major Nordic and Dutch universities, where especially University of Helsinki is performing well, with more than twice the number of followers that the highest ranking Danish university (AU).

/ IDF Grand Solutions funding to Danish universities and hospitals

Innovation Fund Denmark invests in research and innovation projects with the potential to create knowledge, growth and employment in Denmark. Grand Solutions is aimed at collaborative projects based on excellent research focused on solutions of considerable societal value. Based on societal and business challenges, opportunities and innovation needs, Innovation Fund Denmark wants to enable cross-disciplinary investments in knowledge institutions and companies – private as well as public.

Grøn/Bruun has analysed the grants provided so far to Danish universities and hospitals. They key findings are:

1. Danish universities have so far received DKK 3.8B from the Grand Solutions programme
2. The Technical University of Denmark has received more than a third of the funds with a share of 37,4% of the total allocation to the Danish universities
3. University of Copenhagen and Aarhus university has received  just under DKK 800M each or about 20% of the total share each.
4. Aalborg University has received almost three times more funding than University of Southern Denmark.
5. Danish hospitals have received DKK 492.2M in the Grand Solutions programme
6. Rigshospitalet has received 42.9% of the funds allocated to hospitals
7. Aarhus University hospital received 17.0%, Odense University Hospital 10.4% and the remaining Danish hospitals 5% or less.

See the detailed numbers in the picture below.