On Friday 18 August, more than 2,000 people were gathered in the University Park for the annual Summer Festival at Aarhus BSS. And what an evening.

Three quarters of the participants were corporate partners, and indeed lots of our alumni attended the festival. Thank you. I really hope that you enjoyed the academic events at the departments as well as the festival itself.

Relive the Summer Festival

The Summer Festival is our way of thanking our external partners for a positive and fruitful collaboration and of maintaining a good relationship with our alumni - our most valued ambassadors.

In this newsletter, you can see pictures from the festival and relive some of the great moments of the evening. You can also read more about the Alum of the Year; Permanent Secretary in the Department of Justice Barbara Bertelsen.

Welcome to our new alumni

I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome all of you who graduated from Aarhus BSS this summer and who are now alumni. I really hope that you will benefit greatly from being part of Aarhus BSS’ extensive alumni network.

At Aarhus BSS, we strive to keep you as an alum up-to-date on the academic developments on your old degree programme, to enable you to use the alumni network to gain inspiration and build contacts in your future career, and to keep you updated on relevant continuing education offers at Aarhus BSS.

After all, developing your competences and maintaining an academic expertise in your field are increasingly important aspects of professional life.

Free events

During the year, we host a number of high-quality academic events. These events are free to attend for members of the alumni network and offer plenty of opportunities for cultivating your network and nurturing your contacts.

Next year, we are very much hoping to repeat the Aarhus BSS Business Conference - this year’s major new initiative.

Naturally, we are also engaging in alumni activities in the hope that you will agree to help us at some point.

Goodwill

Each year, a number of our students are looking to do an internship in a company or organisation. Perhaps you were also an intern during your studies? For many people, an internship is the gateway to getting your first job after you graduate.

We know that being responsible for an intern is a very rewarding, but also demanding process. The same goes for our external co-examiners, mentors or members of our employer panels.

That’s why we are hoping for your goodwill if one day we need you or your network to add a practical dimension to the students’ degree programmes.   In one way or another.

New Associate Dean

You and your company might also decide to collaborate with Aarhus BSS. In fact, we would very much like to have a close relationship with the companies who will ultimately be employing our graduates. We would like to listen to their needs and meet these needs - perhaps through tailor-made courses.

For this reason, we have just appointed Professor René Rohrbeck as our new Associate Dean for Corporate Relations.

René Rohrbeck will be responsible for strengthening the interplay between the research conducted at Aarhus BSS and the business community’s needs for knowledge, development and innovation.

That’s why I hope to see even more of our external partners at next year’s Summer Festival. And naturally, I also hope that you, our alumni, will join the party as well.