annualreport2013.pdf

Annual Report 2013

Foreword .............................................................................................................................................................. 6

Business and philanthropy .................................................................................................................................... 8

The board of the VILLUM FOUNDATION ....................................................................................................... 12

The board of the VELUX FOUNDATION ......................................................................................................... 13

Financial ratios and highlights - VILLUM FOUNDATION ................................................................................ 14

Financial ratios and highlights - VELUX FOUNDATION .................................................................................. 15

A conversation with Lars Kann-Rasmussen ......................................................................................................... 16

Grants 2013 from the VILLUM FOUNDATION ............................................................................................... 28

Grants 2013 from the VELUX FOUNDATION ................................................................................................. 36

Postcards from supported projects ...................................................................................................................... 46

What determines the distribution of life on Earth? .............................................................................................. 58Carsten Rahbek

Tiny creatures reveal our origins ......................................................................................................................... 62Katrine Worsaae

Better buildings and indoor climate without mould ............................................................................................ 66Birgitte Andersen

New microorganisms and enzymes in biogas plants ............................................................................................. 70Per Halkjær Nielsen and Lene Lange

Stories for all time .............................................................................................................................................. 74Matthew James Driscoll

Metrification of sciences ...................................................................................................................................... 78Poul Erik Mouritzen

Immigrants growing old in Denmark .................................................................................................................. 82Anika Liversage

The eye – a window into brain function .............................................................................................................. 86Henrik Lund-Andersen

Seniors workshops in Svendborg ......................................................................................................................... 90Rasmus Vej

Wilsehaven – vicarage gardens from the Age of Enlightenment ............................................................................ 94Herman Rømer

The history of technology in Greenland .............................................................................................................. 96Hans P. Steenfos and Jørgen Taagholt

Headspace – new, early help for vulnerable children and young people ............................................................... 100Poul Nyrup Rasmussen

TAGDEL.dk – an online portal for volunteerism ............................................................................................... 104Anne Katrine Heje Larsen and Stefan Tholstrup Schmidt

RODACIE – a land of play .............................................................................................................................. 108Ioana Parpala

A social initiative for vulnerable children and young people in Greenland .......................................................... 112Nanna Frost

From dream to reality. A new music museum in the former Broadcasting House ............................................... 116Lisbet Torp

The forest and biodiversity ................................................................................................................................ 122Anders Højgård Petersen, Thomas Hedemark Lundhede and Carsten Rahbek

Oceana: Restoring the Baltic Sea ....................................................................................................................... 126Andrew Sharpless

Business Innovation in a Living Economy ......................................................................................................... 130Bo Normander

Tobaksvejen 10DK-2860 Søborg, DenmarkTel.: (+45) 39 57 09 57 E-mail: [email protected], www.veluxfonden.dk

Management: Kjeld Juel Petersen, MSc politics, Executive Director, VILLUM FOUNDATIONAne Hendriksen, LLM, Executive Director, VELUX FOUNDATIONAnders Kirketerp-Møller, MSc politics, Executive Director of Operations

Legal adviser: Christian Gregersen, Attorney, Law firm Bruun & HjejleAuditor: Gert Fisker Tomczyk, Audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers

© VILLUM FOUNDATION and VELUX FOUNDATION 2013The Annual Report is published in January 2014Edited by: Henrik TronierSub-editor: Dorte SandbergLayout: Jens RaadalProduction: Marketingbrokers ApSISSN: 1902-7087

Cover: The cover is designed by Smike Käszner and is inspired by the new exhibition in The Musical Museum in Copenhagen, presented in this annual report.

Printed by: Sangill Grafisk Print no.: 0097The Annual Report is published in accordance with the environmental managing standard ISO DS/EN 14001. The Annual Report is published on paper meeting the SWAN Label and the Forest Stewardship

Council® Label. The Cocoon paper is a new and very white type of recycled paper. The paper is manufac-tured of recycled paper from offices around Paris in France. Cocoon is part of a sustain ability forest re-planting project in Mozambique. The climate com-pensation is administered by the paper supplier.

4 5C O L O P H O N C O N T E N T S

Foundations still in focusThe increasing focus witnessed in recent years on the foundation sector continued in 2013. In Denmark, this was borne out by moves such as a bill for a new act on industrial foundations, which was noted with great interest by the VILLUM FOUNDATION and VELUX FOUNDATION. Although both of our Foundations are purely non-profit, and hence not directly affected by the bill, we see an important point in being aware of indicators in society that arise out of expectations of modern and responsible foundation manage-ment. Our interest relates to aspects such as the substantial growth in activities achieved by the Foundations in recent years, which is attributable in part to increasing outreach towards the many applicant circles, principally in Denmark, but also in Greenland and elsewhere abroad.

Strengthened organisationBased on the desire to ensure the Foundations’ ability in future to honour the mounting level of activity in the shape of more in-depth dialogue with applicant circles, the growing number of donations and increased complexity of candidate projects, at the turn of the year 2012-13, the management conducted a survey of the Founda-tions’ organisation and procedures. As a result of the survey and subsequent analysis, day-to-day management was supplemented from 1 May 2013 by a division of the joint foundation secretariat into three executive areas and there-by the appointment of an additional two direc-tors. Day-to-day management of the VILLUM FOUNDATION will in future also sort under Director Kjeld Juel Petersen, while day-to-day management of the VELUX FOUNDATION

will be undertaken by Director Ane Hendriksen. Management of the joint administrative functions which support the funding programmes of both Foundations on a daily basis is lodged with Direc-tor Anders Kirketerp-Møller.

The facilitating foundationsSupplementation of the Foundations’ manage-ment is also aimed at enhancing both Founda-tions’ substantial donation capacity by means of a more systematic and targeted drive to develop the independent outreach programme which has been underway within the Foundations for some years. The outreach programme aims to meet new ideas among prospective applicants and also to promote the quality and quantity of applica-tions. Ideas are tried out and discussed among the actors so that the financial frameworks and imple-mentation of the projects may be agreed jointly between all parties. The Foundations wish to act as a facilitating party that assists in placing com-plex issues on the agenda and in finding solutions to societal challenges.

Foundation assets managementThe mandate of the boards of the Foundations includes protecting the Foundations’ assets for the future. In addition, the boards aim to achieve yield from assets sufficient to permit ongoing do-nation to the many funding areas in observance of the wish and aspiration of the founder of the

Foundations as expressed in their statutes. In 2013, the boards of both Foundations resolved that the Foundations’ asset management shall comprise active and ongoing deliberations on placing assets in responsible investments.

Donations in 2013In terms of donations, 2013 was an eventful year with donations from the VILLUM FOUNDA-TION of DKK 942 million and from the VELUX FOUNDATION of DKK 240 million. Of these amounts, around half was donated to a diverse range of research activities. In addition, both Foundations made a contribution to the realisa-tion of environmental, social and cultural projects.We hope with our Annual Report 2013 to pro-vide an insight into the Foundations’ work and the efforts made by both of the Foundation boards and administration, and not least by the authors of the featured articles. We would like to convey our thanks for the continued interest from applicants within our many funding areas, and for the positive exchanges and openness we are met with in implementing new initiatives. Our thanks also to board members, working par-ties, experts and employees as well as the Foun-dations’ advisers and suppliers for their contribu-tions and efforts over the past year. We would also offer a special thank-you to the VKR Group and its business activities on which the greater part of our donations rest.

Foreword

Lars E. Kann-RasmussenVILLUM FOUNDATION

Hans Kann RasmussenVELUX FOUNDATIONThe new organisational structure of the VILLUM FOUNDATION and the VELUX FOUNDATION.

Donees

The VILLUM FOUNDATION’s funding areas

The Board of the VILLUM FOUNDATION The Board of the VELUX FOUNDATION

The VELUX FOUNDATION’s funding areas

The Foundations Administration

Finance & Accounting

AdministrativeSupport

Strategy Support& Development

HR

CommunicationFacilities

Management

IT

Foundation law

Asset Management

Science &technology

Environment &sustainability

Daylight & BuildingComponents Award

Othermajor projects

Social projects,including abroad

Humanities, arts & culture

Environment &sustainability

Activesenior citizens

Ageing research& ophthalmology

Social projectsin Denmark

6 F O R E W O R D 7V I L L U M F O U N D AT I O N A N D V E L U X F O U N D AT I O N

8 B U S I N E S S A N D P H I L A N T H R O P Y 9V I L L U M F O U N D AT I O N A N D V E L U X F O U N D AT I O N

The VILLUM FOUNDATION and the VELUX FOUNDATION are both wholly non-profit or-ganisations that support scientific, artistic, cultural, environmental and social purposes. Over the last 42 and 32 years respectively, the two foundations have made charitable donations total-ling in excess of DKK 5 billion – “for the pleasure, encouragement and benefit of a great many peo-ple”, as the founder, Villum Kann Rasmussen, ex-pressed his mission more than 25 years ago in the foundations’ first annual report (1986).In 2013 the VILLUM FOUNDATION donated

DKK 942 million, and the VELUX FOUNDA-TION DKK 240 million to non-profit purposes.

Where does the money come from?The funds for the non-profit programmes derive from the group of companies that Villum Kann Ras-mussen originated; the VKR Group. The compa-nies in this group develop, manufacture and market VELUX roof windows and other building compo-nents that bring daylight, fresh air and a better en-vironment into people’s everyday lives. The VKR Group’s 13,500 employees across the

Business and philanthropy globe work day in, day out to ensure that the busi-ness evolves continually and creates value for society, both through the Group’s products, and through a proportion of the proceeds, which are donated via the foundations to non-profit projects and activities both in Denmark and abroad.

Not a commercial undertakingAlthough the VILLUM FOUNDATION is the principal shareholder in the VKR Group – while the VELUX FOUNDATION, in spite of the name, holds no shares in the company – both are wholly non-profit foundations. As such, the VILLUM FOUNDATION, unlike other Danish private foun-dations such as A.P. Møller Fonden, the Carlsberg Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation or the Lundbeck Foundation, is not at the same time a business undertaking, i.e. with controlling influ-ence over the company that backs the foundation. However, as laid down in its statutes, the VILLUM FOUNDATION does hold significant joint respon-sibility vis-à-vis the VKR Group and its employees.The Foundation is required under its statutes to contribute to ensuring that VKR Holding A/S (the parent company of the VKR Group) has a relevant board to manage and control the company effec-tively with a view to its survival and sustained repu-tation as a model company. A system of checks-and-balances between the three principal shareholders, of which the foundation is by far the largest, yet without independent con-trolling influence, serves to maintain the requi-site stability and balance in shareholder decision-making and hence an ideal ownership structure for the benefit of the VKR Group. More information about checks-and-balances is provided in the in-terview with chairman Lars Kann-Rasmussen else-where in this annual report.

The VILLUM FOUNDATION’s responsibility for the company is also expressed in the provision in the statutes for the foundation to be able to grant financial support to current or former em-ployees of the company. This commitment is hon-oured through the Employee Foundation of the VKR Group. This foundation draws on the yield from invested capital from the VILLUM FOUN-DATION to finance its donations, including those made to non-profit projects in the local communi-ties in the vicinity of the VKR Group’s activities, both in Denmark and abroad.In spite of their common origin, and for the VIL-LUM FOUNDATION’s part, a very direct finan-cial interest in the VKR Group’s companies, the two foundations are not governed in their non-profit undertakings, either through statutes or in practice, by commercial interests. And aside from their com-mon origin, both the company and the foundations also share common values based on Villum Kann Rasmussen’s model company objective of exercis-ing exemplary conduct towards employees, custom-ers (and foundation applicants), suppliers, business partners and society as a whole.

The foundations’ boardsThe board of directors of both the VILLUM FOUNDATION and the VELUX FOUNDA-TION is composed in accordance with the foun-dation statutes. The members of the boards are to be “legally competent, reputable, reliable and of mature age”. Within the VILLUM FOUNDA-TION, at least four of the six board members must be competent in business matters. For the VELUX FOUNDATION, “both business economics and cultural and educational insight” shall at all times be represented within the board. The statutes of both foundations also require that their respective board

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The VILLUM FOUNDATION’s total grants 2009-2013 (DKK millions) The VELUX FOUNDATION’s total grants 2009-2013 (DKK millions)

Environment Denmark

Social projects Eastern Europe

Environment abroad

Social projects Greenland

Social projects Denmark

Other donations

Research and research dissemination

Environment

Culture

Social projects in Denmark

Humanities

Ophthalmological research

Active senior citizens

Gerontological research

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includes a descendant of the founder. More information about the individual board members is provided elsewhere in this annual report.

The role of the familyAs the principal shareholder, the VILLUM FOUNDATION owns almost 90% of the share capital in VKR Holding A/S in the form of shares with restricted voting rights. The founda-tion shares ownership and influence with the founder’s sons, Lars E. Kann-Rasmussen and Hans Kann Rasmussen, both of whom are A-class shareholders with extended voting rights.

The foundations’ tax liability Private foundations are compensated for their charitable do-nations via reduced liability for tax. From time to time, this reduced tax liability comes under a certain criticism from the press, in spite of the logic behind this taxation rule being neither obscure nor complicated. By donating at least 80% of its taxable surplus within a five-year period to common purposes in society (“the public good”), which do not serve to financially enrich individuals or companies, a foundation does not concomitantly have to pay tax on that surplus. The remaining 20% of the taxable surplus may then be reinvested in the foundation’s capital in order to safeguard the actual value of the funds that will also in future enable the foundation to contribute to the com-mon societal purposes.In this way, the foundations have the option of contribut-ing to the common purposes in society either by donating at least 80% of their taxable surplus to non-profit purposes or by paying tax and in so doing allowing central and local government to ‘donate’ to society. In that we have to date been favoured by a sufficient stream of high-quality applications, both of our foundations have so far been in a position to choose the first of the two options. But if the stream of highly eligible applications were to dry up, we would, on the other hand, rather pay tax than lower our standards and make donations to unworthy projects.

VILLUM FOUNDATION Donated DKK 942 million in 2013.

The foundation grants support for specific, well-

delimited, large-scale projects for the advancement

of scientific, artistic, cultural, social and environ-

mental purposes.

Also confers the Villum Kann Rasmussen Annual

Award for Technical and Scientific Research.

Founded in 1971.

VELUX FOUNDATION Donated DKK 240 million in 2013.

The foundation has the specific objectives of grant-

ing support for activities for elderly people as well

as research within gerontology (the conditions of

life of elderly people), geriatrics (diseases in elderly

people) and ophthalmology (eye diseases).

In addition, the foundation makes grants to major

projects promoting scientific, artistic, cultural, envi-

ronmental and social purposes. The Daylight Award

is made jointly with the VILLUM FOUNDATION.

Founded in 1981.

EMPLOYEE FOUNDATION

Donated DKK 5,2 million in 2013.

The foundation grants support to the VKR Group’s

employees in various areas, first and foremost to

- employees or their immediate family who have

had an unfortunate accident

- education for the children of employees

- non-profit purposes in the geographical vicinity

of the VKR Group’s companies

Founded in 1991.

V. KANN RASMUSSEN FOUNDATION, USA

Donated DKK 28,4 million in 2013.

The foundation’s primary objective is to support

environmental research and raise public awareness

of environmental issues.

The foundation also supports social purposes in

Greenwood and South Carolina, USA, where VELUX

has production and sales companies.

Finally, the foundation has funded medical re-

search, with a focus on research in ophthalmology.

Founded in 1991.

VELUX STIFTUNG, SWITZERLANDDonated DKK 17,1 million in 2013.

The foundation supports research in daylight and

its importance to man. The foundation also funds

research within the fields of gerontology, geriatrics

and ophthalmology.

Founded in 1980.

THE BUSINESSVKR Holding owns companies within four

business areas:

• Roof windows and skylights

• Vertical windows

• Thermal solar energy

• Ventilation and indoor climate

The VKR Group has around 13,500 em-

ployees in more than 40 countries, and in

2012 had net turn over of DKK 17 billion.

The parent company of the VKR Group is

VKR Holding A/S, the principal shareholder

of which is still the VILLUM FOUNDATION. Photo: Ole Haupt

OUR FOUNDERThe inventor and entrepreneur, Villum Kann Rasmussen, MSc Dr. techn. h.c. (1909-1993), developed the modern roof window that opened up a whole new world of architec-tural options for bringing daylight, fresh air and a better environment into people’s every day lives. In 1941 he founded the VKR Group.In order to ensure the long-term survival of the company, in 1971, he established the VILLUM FOUNDATION with an endowment of the entirety of his B-class shares in the company. Ten years later, he established the VELUX FOUNDATION by a cash donation.

Five foundationssharing the same origin

Astrid Kann-Rasmussen, Steen Riisgaard, Peter Land-rock, Kristian Stubkjær, Lars E. Kann-Rasmussen, Bodil Nyboe Andersen, Bjarne Gråbæk Thomsen.

Marianne Zibrandtsen, Minik Rosing, Hans Peter Jensen, Hans Kann Rasmussen, Kamilla Kann Rasmus-sen, Kristian H. Kann Rasmussen.

Photo: Pernille Ringsing Photo: Pernille Ringsing

The board of the VELUX FOUNDATIONThe board of the VILLUM FOUNDATION

Name Year elected Titles etc. Other boards etc.

Hans H. Kann Rasmussen (b. 1945),

Chairman

2006 Bsc Engineering V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, USA (chairman), VKR’s Familiefond

(VKR family trust fund)

Hans Peter Jensen (b. 1943),

Vice-chairman

2004 DPhil, warden of a hall

of residence with the

title of ”Efor”

Gefion Gymnasium (6th form college ) (chairman), Alectia

Foundation (chairman), Experimentarium, Ellehammer A/S

Kamilla Kann Rasmussen (b. 1967) 2004 Educationist VKR’s Familiefond (VKR family trust fund) (chairman)

Marianne Zibrandtsen (b. 1951) 2005 6th form college

principal, MA

Aurehøj Gymnasium (6th form college), Advisory Board of the

University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Humanities and Faculty of

Theology, Øregaard Museum (chairman of the board of gover-

nors), Presiding Committee of UNICEF Denmark, Den Letterstedska

Föreningen (Nordic society for industry, science and the arts), King

Olav V’s Foundation, University of Copenhagen, Rectorate’s Coun-

celling Board

Minik Thorleif Rosing (b. 1957) 2012 Professor Ilisimatusarfik (University of Greenland) (chairman), Louisiana

Museum of Modern Art, The Arctic Institute (vice-chairman), The

Ivalo and Minik Foundation, Geological Survey of Denmark and

Greenland (GEUS)

Kristian H. Kann Rasmussen (b. 1979)

serves on the board as the family’s

observer under the Statutes

2013 V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, USA

Name Year elected Titles etc. Other boards etc.

Lars E. Kann-Rasmussen (b. 1939),

Chairman

2005 Director,

BSc Engineering

Kristian Elmholdt Stubkjær (b. 1953),

Vice-chairman

2005 Professor, head of

department, MSc

Engineering

Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of

Denmark, Thomas B. Thrige Fonden (Foundation), Danish Academy

of Technical Sciences, The Climate Foundation , VKR Holding A/S,

Dansk Elbil Alliance

Peter Landrock (b. 1948) 2008 Director, professor,

MSc, PhD

Cryptomathic A/S, Holding ApS (chairman), Wolfson College,

Cambridge University, WindowMaster A/S, Monodraught Ltd.

Bodil Nyboe Andersen (b. 1940) 2005 Former governor,

Danmarks National-

bank, MSc Economics

Østre Gasværk Theatre, Laurits Andersens Foundation, Advisory

Board for Ordrupgaardsamlingen

Steen Riisgaard (b. 1951) 2013 Director. MSc, former

managing director and

CEO in Novozymes A/S

ALK-Abelló (chairman), ROCKWOOL International (chairman),

COWI Holding A/S (chairman), Xellia Pharmaceutical A/S (chairman),

Egmont International Holding (vice-chairman), Novo A/S (board

member), Egmontfonden (vice-chairman), Novo Nordisk Fonden,

Aarhus University

Bjarne Gråbæk Thomsen (b. 1946) 2009 Consultant, former CEO The Employee Foundation of the VKR Group, VKR France S.A.S,

A/S Østbirk Bygningsindustri, The Danish Museum of Industry

Astrid Kann-Rasmussen (b. 1974),

serves on the board as the family’s

observer under the Statutes

2012 Nurse V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, USA

1 2 B O A R D S 1 3V I L L U M F O U N D AT I O N A N D V E L U X F O U N D AT I O N

VILLUM FOUNDATION All figures in DKK 1,000s VELUX FOUNDATION All figures in DKK 1,000s

1) The VILLUM FOUNDATION’s board members’ emoluments, as a share of the remuneration to the working parties, came to DKK 388,000 (2011: DKK 369,000).

2) Auditors’ fees comprise statutory financial audit at DKK 217,000 and non-audit services at DKK 869,000 (corresponding breakdown in 2011: DKK 209,000/DKK 431,000).

3) General administration expenses are borne by the VILLUM FOUNDATION and the VELUX FOUNDATION at a ratio of 60:40.

4) By distributing at least 80% of its taxable surplus within a 5-year period to non-profit purposes, a foundation achieves full tax exemption on its income. The remaining 20% can be used to consolidate the foundation’s assets in order to sa-feguard its future non-profit donation capacity. Through its active donations policy, the foundation has so far been in a position to make best use of this tax scheme.

5) According to VKR Holding’s annual financial statement, the net asset value of these as at 31 December 2012 is equivalent to DKK 11.4 billion (2011: DKK 11.1 billion).

1) In 2012, the VELUX FOUNDATION also received an endowment of DKK 40 mil-lion from the VILLUM FOUNDATION (2011: DKK 40 million).

2) The VELUX FOUNDATION’s board members’ emoluments, as a share of the remu-neration to the working parties, came to DKK 521,000 (2011: DKK 261,000).

3) Auditors’ fees comprise statutory financial audit at DKK 175,000 and non-audit services at DKK 730,000 (corresponding breakdown in 2011: DKK 170,000/DKK 426,000).

4) By distributing at least 80% of its taxable surplus within a 5-year period to non-profit purposes, a foundation achieves full tax exemption on its surplus. The remaining 20% can be used to consolidate the foundation’s assets in order to sa-feguard its future non-profit donation capacity. Through its active donations policy, the foundation has so far been in a position to make best use of this tax scheme.

FINANCIAL RATIOS AND HIGHLIGHTS

2012 2011

Annual result in DKK 1,000s 193,875 129,690

Grants, total 199,935 155,667

Number of applications received 1,216 1,336

Amount applied for 2,346,189 2,744,891

Number of grants 328 330

Applications accepted 199,935 155,667

Applications accepted, in % of amount applied for 9% 6%

Number of grants: between DKK 0 and 1 million 297 296

between DKK 1 and 10 million 27 32

more than DKK 10 million 4 2

Administration percentage 7% 8%

Administration expenses per grant 42 38

Administration expenses per DKK 1.00 granted 0.07 0.08

Average grant size 610 472

YEAR’S RESULT AND BALANCE SHEET 2012

INCOME STATEMENT 2012 2011Endowment received from the VILLUM FOUNDATION 143,003 1) 76,000

Income from securities and bank deposits 64,566 66,115

Financial yield for the year 207,569 142,115

Emoluments to members of the board 813 859

Remuneration of working parties appointed by the board 442 2) 578

Legal secretary 677 800

Auditors 905 3) 596

Asset management 681 187

Other administrative expenses 10,176 9,405

Total management and administration 13,694 12,425

Annual result 193,875 4) 129,690

Allocation of surplus:

Set aside in previous years 27,439 30,816

Retained taxable capital gain on tied-up capital 7,300 22,600

Annual result 193,875 129,690

Available foundation funds 228,614 183,106

Allocation of funds as follows:

Donations 199,935 155,667

Set aside for consolidation with tied-up assets - -

Set aside for later use at the end of the financial year 28,679 27,439

Total allocated 228,614 183,106

BALANCE SHEET AS AT 31 DECEMBER 2012 2011Assets

Tied-up foundation assets:

Securities 2,034,455 1,826,429

Office premises 27,328 27,328

Bank balances and other receivables 374 5,784

Total tied-up foundation assets 2,062,157 1,859,541

Available foundation funds:

Securities 293,124 222,631

Bank balances and other receivables 39,679 59,246

Total available foundation funds 332,803 281,877

Total assets 2,394,960 2,141,418

Liabilities

Awarded, not yet disbursed amounts 328,801 243,025

Outstanding expenses 4,326 9,973

Set aside for later use etc. 28,679 27,439

Unrealised capital gain/loss 3,768 1,440

Tied-up equity 2,029,386 1,859,541

Total liabilities 2,394,960 2,141,418

FINANCIAL RATIOS AND HIGHLIGHTS

2012 2011

Annual result in DKK 1,000s 1,006,504 1,023,645

Grants, total 941,727 504,914

Grants - VELUX FOUNDATION 187,003 116,000

Other grants* 754,724 388,914

Number of applications received 364 452

Total amount applied for 1,845,670 2,912,822

Number of grants 110 76

Number of grants to Denmark 65 47

Number of grants to Greenland and abroad 45 29

Number of grants as %-age of total number of applications 30% 17%

Number of grants from Denmark as %-age of total number of applications granted 59% 62%

Number of grants from Greenland and abroad as %-age of total number of applications granted 41% 38%

Total amount granted in DKK 1,000 753,724 388,914

Accepted applications in % of amounts applied for 41% 13%

Accepted applications in % of amounts applied for in Denmark 39% 75%

Accepted applications in % of amounts applied for in Greenland and abroad 13% 25%

Number of grants: between DKK 0 and 1 million 29 19

between DKK 1 and 10 million 70 47

more than DKK 10 million 11 10

Administration percentage 3.0% 5.5%

Administration expenses per grant 226 281

Administration expenses per DKK 1,00 granted 0.03 0.05

Average grant size 6,852 5,117

* Key figures calculated on basis of other grants

YEAR’S RESULT AND BALANCE SHEET 2012

INCOME STATEMENT 2012 2011Dividend from shares in VKR Holding 900,640 900,640

Income from securities and bank deposits 130,646 144,348

Financial yield for the year 1,031,286 1,044,988

Emoluments to members of the board 750 750

Remuneration of working parties appointed by the board 454 1) 948

Legal secretary 2,169 1,377

Auditors 1,086 2) 793

Asset management 732 126

Other administrative expenses 19,591 3) 17,349

Total management and administration 24,782 21,343

Annual result 1,006,504 4) 1,023,645

Allocation of surplus:

Set aside in previous years 1,023,283 725,552

Annual result 1,006,504 1,023,645

Available foundation funds 2,029,787 1,749,197

Allocation of funds as follows:

Donations 753,724 388,914

Endowed to the VELUX FOUNDATION 187,003 116,000

Set aside for consolidation with tied-up assets 83,000 221,000

Set aside for later use at the end of the financial year 1,006,060 1,023,283

Total allocated 2,029,787 1,749,197

BALANCE SHEET AS AT 31 DECEMBER 2012 2011Assets

Tied-up foundation assets:

Shares in VKR Holding (nominal value) 90,000 5) 90,000

Securities 2,244,981 2,104,389

Office premises 27,328 27,328


Total tied-up foundation assets 2,365,368 2,222,855

Available foundation funds:

Securities 2,348,332 1,759,466


Total available foundation funds 2,395,051 1,802,807

Total assets 4,760,419 4,025,662

Liabilities

Awarded, not yet disbursed amounts 1,201,569 759,754

Outstanding expenses 10,579 6,264

Deposits for later use 1,006,060 1,023,283

Unrealised capital gain/loss 93,236 13,506

Tied-up equity 2,448,975 2,222,855

Total liabilities 4,760,419 4,025,662

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1 4 F I N A N C I A L R AT I O S A N D H I G H L I G H T S 1 5V I L L U M F O U N D AT I O N A N D V E L U X F O U N D AT I O N

1 6 A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H L A R S K A N N - R A S M U S S E N 1 7V I L L U M F O U N D AT I O N

In March 2014, Chairman of the Board Lars Kann-Rasmussen will retire from the VILLUM FOUNDA-TION after nine years of faithful service. He turns 75 next year, and will thus reach the limit for how long a member may be active on the Board according to the Foundation’s statutes. In this connection, Lars Kann-Rasmussen agreed to meet with Professor Anker Brink Lund, Head of the Center for Civil Society Studies at Copenhagen Business School and co-author of the book Dansk Fondsledelse (Danish Foundation Manage-ment), for a candid conversation about the interaction between Firm, Foundation and Family. The conversa-tion centred on the concept of checks and balances with special emphasis on the unique approach to ensuring both the long-term ownership of a multinational group of companies and the non-profit grants to charitable causes, while giving the Kann Rasmussen Family the opportunity to play an active role in the foundation work for many years to come.

Collaboration for fun and out of dutyLars Kann-Rasmussen: The VILLUM FOUNDATION was originally the sole heir to the corporate shares in VKR Holding. My three siblings and I voted for this set-up when the Foundation was formed in 1971. In so doing, we re-nounced our inheritance. This was changed in 1986, after several people had asked my father: “Are you sure it’s right to leave it all to the Foundation? As long as there is somebody in the family with the inclination and ability – why not leave the decision about 100% foundation ownership of the company to your successors?”This led to two family shareholders (my brother Hans and I) plus the VILLUM FOUNDATION – that is three share-holders who can supplement each other.

Anker Brink Lund: But VELUX could just have carried on as a classic family business? You had a founder with a knack

- a conversation with Lars Kann-Rasmussen

Dynamic interaction

Firm, Foundation and Familybetween

Checks and balancesAs the main shareholder, the VIL-LUM FOUNDATION owns the ma-jority of B-class shares. The Founda-tion shares ownership and influence with the founder’s sons, Lars Kann-Rasmussen and Hans Kann Rasmus-sen, both of whom are A-class share-holders with extended voting rights. The voting rights are assigned in such a way that if two of the three share-holders are in agreement, decisions can be made at VKR Holding’s Annu-al General Meeting.The system is commonly referred to as checks and balances and is in-spired by the constitution of the Unit-ed States of America, in which three interconnected powers can keep an eye on each other and ensure that no one has too much power. In the case of the Foundation, it was established to ensure both dynamics and stability and thus optimum ownership for the benefit of the group of companies.To date, all three shareholders have been in agreement at VKR Holding’s Annual General Meeting. However, the system ensures that any disagree-ment can be dealt with and that the necessary decision-making power is in place.


for innovation and good business sense plus two sons who had both become engineers?- My father had observed first-hand businesses where the successors ended up falling out. He wanted to avoid that. Another issue was that financing a generational change took a lot of money, and that money could only come from the company. Ever since he was denied a loan in a bank, my father had worked hard to not be dependent on banks. It was deeply rooted in him – and in me – the knowledge that if you suddenly have to pay 32% of some sort of fictional commercial value then you can be forced to borrow it and thus become de-pendent on banks. Avoiding that kind of situation was an important driver.

But then why not a commercial foundation, like such major Danish companies as Carlsberg, Novo Nordisk and Egmont? - My father wasn’t all that concerned about whether it was a commercial foundation or a charitable foundation, so the fact that we aren’t a commer-cial foundation is more due to a series of coincidences. And commercial or charitable, it doesn’t really change the fact that a generational change would

Lars Kann-Rasmussen (born 1939) started out in the then new VELUX sales company in France in Septem-ber 1964. In 1967 he became head of department at V. Kann Rasmus-sen & Co. Then CEO at Dansk Velux A/S in 1971, and in 1976 Member of the Board of the parent compa-ny VKR Holding. In 1992 he became Chairman of the Board of VKR Hold-ing. From 2005, he was elected as the family representative and Chairman of the Board of the VILLUM FOUNDA-TION. In March 2010, Lars Kann-Ras-mussen retired from the company to devote himself entirely to his duties as Chairman of the Board of the VIL-LUM FOUNDATION. Photo: Flemming Jeppesen

During autumn 2013, Lars Kann-Rasmussen had a series of conversations with Profes-sor Anker Brink Lund from Copenhagen Business School. Photo: Pernille Ringsing


have resulted in extremely high taxes and duties.In the period 1964-2010, you also took on many other management tasks in the company. Was that for fun or out of a sense of duty?- It was a combination of several things. The life I’ve had working for the company has for the most part been much more than 90% drudgery. And then once in a while something fantastic would come along! A new product, an important cus-tomer or a collaboration with others that really made a difference. Once you get caught up in it, you’re stuck and you don’t just clock out at 4 pm. So some of it has been for fun, but definitely also out of a sense of duty.

The family’s active roleThe VELUX FOUNDATION was established ten years after the VILLUM FOUNDATION. Why was that? - The difference between the VILLUM FOUN-DATION and the VELUX FOUNDATION at the time was that one was the company’s security and the other was a grant-awarding organisation. As the VILLUM FOUNDATION receives divi-dends from the company, the assets grow and sub-sequently so does the need to award grants. Origi-nally the VILLUM FOUNDATION only awarded the Villum Kann Rasmussen Annual Award for Technical and Scientific Research on 23 January –

the founder’s birthday. Later, the foundation work simply required more hands. There was a need to grant more funding, and so the VELUX FOUN-DATION was established in 1981. It became the grant-awarding foundation for many years. Today, both foundations actively award grants in close and coordinated collaboration, which is promoted by, among others, my brother Hans as chairman of the VELUX FOUNDATION. We are also served by a joint secretariat.

Since then, three additional foundations were formed – the Employee Foundation in 1991, VELUX Stifttung in Switzerland (established in 1980) and the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation (established in 1991) in the USA. All of these boards include family members. - According to the VILLUM FOUNDATION’s charter, there should be one representative of the family on the Board. In addition, the family may elect an observer. That way family members – the third generation – can sit in on and listen at the

meetings. We have had observers from all four branches of the family. All have been fully accepted by the rest of the Foundation Board. The observ-ers have shown interest and curiosity, and it has re-quired a great deal of preparation. And they have made useful contributions. I don’t recall the origin of the observer position. Possibly from a discussion between my father and my uncle. I believe my uncle felt that Family and Foundation should be kept completely separate. My father didn’t agree, and so the observer posi-tion might have evolved as a kind of compromise. I think it works well because several of my parents’ grandchildren have participated and done so ac-tively – especially in the USA and Switzerland, but also here in Denmark.

What is the family’s role in the company, then?- My two sons work for the company today, and my daughter was with the company for about a year before she moved abroad. But none of my nieces and nephews have worked for the company.

Interaction ModelFirm-Foundation-Family FIRM – FOUNDATION

- The Foundation has an obligation towards its ownership of the Firm. See statutes.

- The Foundation has an obligation towards the Group’s current and former employees. See statutes.

- The Foundation should facilitate awareness and knowledge of the Firm’s products through relevant grants.

FOUNDATION – FAMILY

- The Family must be able to make two competent A-shareholders available.

- The Foundation must purchase any shares in VKR Holding from B-shareholders who wish to exit the Firm.

- The Family must ensure a competent member of the board of VILLUM FONDEN.

- The Family should observe the meetings of the Foundation Board by making an observer available.

Source: Lars E. Kann-Rasmussen

FOUNDATION

The Foundation must make a positive contribution to society via its grants and donations and its activities

FIRM

The Firm must generate returns for the Foundation and

B-shareholders

FAMILY

The Family should coordinate its relations to the Foundation

and the Firm

FIRM – FAMILY

- The Group has no special obligation towards the Family.

- The Family should to an appropriate extent and based on competencies seek representation in relevant Firm contexts, e.g. board memberships.

FIRM – FOUNDATION – FAMILY

- The founder’s ideal goal, values and attitudes.

- The desire, will and ability to collaborate.

- The awareness that one party’s mistakes can damage the other two parties.

Today, both VKR Holding and VELUX are located in Hørsholm, north of Copenhagen. Photo: Normann Sloth


Why not?- Maybe they didn’t want to. We hold family meet-ings every now and then, and I’ve done my part to encourage them. I’ve said that they would have a privileged position in that they were guaranteed an interview. But they haven’t come. They hold de-grees in a wide range of areas; one has musical tal-ent and probably can’t imagine doing something like this.

Creating value in a global worldIf we look at the total value creation from the Firm–Foundation–Family interaction, what carries the most weight?- The activities in the firm are without a doubt the most important. Without them we wouldn’t have any of the other things.

But the foundations seem to be kept at arm’s length from the company. There appears to be a clear un-derstanding that they should be kept separate. But in eastern Europe, for instance, it is considered odd if you don’t call attention to your business. They think: “There must be something fishy here”.- We still haven’t learned to exploit the value of, say, awarding grants in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, where we employ a lot of people. We aren’t good enough at it yet, and could definitely do more with it. You’re absolutely right, though. If we don’t communicate that we also sell VELUX windows, then people think it’s very strange. We have discovered that.

As you know, other foundations are restricted by the fact that even though most of the income comes from other countries besides Denmark, they may only award grants in Denmark. But we no longer live in a society with closed borders …

- Exactly. And that’s why the VILLUM FOUN-DATION also contributes to development in east-ern Europe, where we have chosen to focus on social causes (helping children and young people). As you know, we employ many people in these countries – and it would just be wrong if we gener-ated good profits in less affluent countries without giving something back. In Denmark we are quite spoiled with museums and the like. So we believe that a krone/euro shared with children and young people in eastern Europe and Greenland is better for the common good. And this is despite that fact that it involves more work.

Wouldn’t it be of more value to Danish society if we let the wise people in the European Union, the Dan-ish Parliament and the local authorities address these types of issues?- The foundation legislation in Denmark gives our Foundation Board the right to administer some funds instead of having the giant centralised sys-tem administer them. This is a significant decen-tralisation of billions. So the Danish government has given a bunch of non-democratically elected decision-makers permission to decide what should be done with these funds – under the supervision and guidance of the Danish Department of Civil Affairs, of course. The one condition is that they must benefit society, but otherwise we are free to decide how. And if the general public change this balance, the funds will just end up in the giant gov-ernment machine or accumulate in the company, and there are all kinds of opinions about that.This is precisely why transparency is so important. Because without openness about how we work and administer the funds, myths and rumours would abound. And in the end we risk losing our ‘license to operate’. We have a natural obligation to make

our activities comprehensible and transparent to the general public, which must ultimately approve that our conduct is reasonable.

Checks and balancesIf I understand correctly, you came up with the con-cept of checks and balances – not your father?- Well, what he stood for – as a professional – he would definitely decide that for himself. But I

don’t think he would have had anything against checks and balances per se. I also think he would have approved of our efforts to promote the envi-ronment and sustainability as key areas worthy of our charitable support. These are decisions we can make because we knew the founder, his values and opinions.The concept of checks and balances arose as I came to realise, from my unique position at the centre of

In spring 1950, Villum Kann Rasmussen acquired the site at Maskinvej 4 in Søborg, Gladsaxe, where the company erected its own buildings housing workshops and offices. By 1958, the premises were expanded with the construc-tion of several manufacturing halls. In 1963 a new headquarters were built on the neighbouring site on Tobaksvejen 10, which in addition to the administration function, also housed an R&D department with a workshop and draw-ing department. From 2008, the building has been the home of the VILLUM FOUNDATION’s and the VELUX FOUNDA-TION’s joint secretariat. Photo: Aerodan Luftfoto

the Interaction Model, how much it means for a company to have the right owners. If the Foundation became the sole owner, it could develop into a one-sided ownership that couldn’t compete with, say, share ownership.But only the future can tell whether our ownership system is the best.

Besides Firm-Foundation-Family, I would guess you also have to include those who apply for the grants as a factor in the future checks and balances. One might call this applicant governance or stakeholder relations. How is this incor-porated into the foundations’ operations?- We have seen growing professionalisation. And if you can establish a checks and balances system, then this process manages itself. From the very begin-ning, I have been convinced that things should be kept completely separate. Nobody is at an advantage. I have always aspired to that. Of course people talk to me, send out feelers, that sort of thing. I always refer them to the Foundation secretariat. Sometimes you have to explain that we all have to keep our distance. Otherwise things can quickly begin to rot and fester. Within technology and science, I am constantly being told about the im-portance of the grants from the VILLUM FOUNDATION, because they come with much greater liberty of action than the government grants. This is one of the things we emphasise. But again, there is a big difference be-tween awarding grants to the science, where we have strong expertise on the Board we can lean on, so the need for control isn’t as pressing. And then

granting funding to a 5 million-kroner project in Bulgaria, because we have to be very careful to ensure that we aren’t putting the money right into the hands of criminals. It’s a balancing act. Otherwise I strongly support as little control as possible.

But shouldn’t a foundation board sometimes be allowed to be headstrong and say: “This is what we need to do, it’s important to us, we want to invest in this”?- We are also well-aware of this, both in the Management and on the Board. We have an obligation to take the risks that the business community can’t take, and that the government can’t take either with the taxpayers’ money. So how can we live up to this obligation? We do so by staying close to where the ideas develop. For instance, we develop an idea for a project, and then we set about finding an applicant for that project. It’s experimental, resource-intensive and risky!

But then you’re bringing an additional power into the circles of the Interaction Model: the Foundations’ administrative staff. Isn’t there a risk that profession-alisation in the long term means bureaucratisation?- Part of the reasoning behind our recent organisational restructuring was to allow the head of the secretariat to devote more time to the grant-awarding function. That is, to getting to know the customers, or the stakeholders as you could call them.



Villum Kann Rasmussen looking through the iconic VELUX GGL roof window during a visit to A/S Østbirk Bygnings-industri in 1979, where the VELUX Group has manufactured windows since 1946.

How does this tie in with the involvement of outside experts – the so-called peer review?- When it comes to the selection of our experts, the foundation employee should not decide on their own who the expert should be. This decision is made in the working group – comprising repre-sentatives from the Board – within the individual areas. The employee proposes possible experts, but they should not make the decision on their own. This is an attempt to work with checks and bal-ances in our internal procedures. We also have external experts in our work-ing groups. That ensures a discussion about our process of selecting the expert. On some of our projects, it’s difficult to determine what makes someone an expert in a specific area. Sometimes we ask the applicants themselves who they would recommend? This gives us a good insight, and then we often try to bring in experts from abroad, but that’s no guarantee either. When you’re dealing with extremely narrow specialities, everyone knows everyone else.

New challenges in the future Foundations are in principle everlasting – you don’t have an expiry date. What challenges do you see in the future? - In general, the aim is to achieve the greatest pos-sible societal benefit with the money. And that is a constant challenge. Furthermore, foundations and their contributions to society have entered the public eye in recent years. With the increased attention comes a natural desire to keep tabs on what’s going on in the seem-ingly so closed foundations.

As a result, transparency is – if not a challenge – then at least a condition of life that affects all of society. VILLUM FONDEN and VELUX FONDEN have, in recent years, worked systematically with greater transparency. This process has been easy for us, because we don’t feel we have anything to hide. But naturally it is something we constantly con-sider how we can make improvements on.

But it hasn’t always been like that?- No, my father and his partner Kamman, whom he had known since their school days together, were wise enough to keep their business activities to themselves. That gave the small business time to grow stronger. They were both very tight-lipped for many years. At the time, that kind of secrecy was necessary, and that caution lingered with us for a long time.

So your advice to your successors in the VILLUM FOUNDATION would be to stick to transparency and the checks and balances system?- Yes, but other major challenges lie ahead as well: How can we do a better job clearly communicat-ing the effect our grants have and the value they give to society as a whole? Are we leaving the mark we were aiming for? We also need to do a better job measuring what we do. And perhaps we should start viewing our grants more as active investments and not just as donations. - For the Firm, the Foundations and the Family, it’s simply about doing a better job telling the world what we do and the important role we play in society.

Technical University of Denmark, National Food InstituteProfessor Frank M. Aarestrup “REINSURE - Revolutionizing Infectious Disease Surveillance”DKK 4,980,551

University of Southern Denmark, Depart-ment of Mathematics and Computer ScienceAssociate Professor Joan Boyar“On-Line Algorithms and Advice”DKK 2,900,101

Aarhus University, Department of MathematicsProfessor Søren Fournais “Spectral Analysis of Large Particle Systems”DKK 4,030,144

Aarhus University, Department of Physics and AstronomyAssociate Professor Brian Julsgaard “Light-emitting Nano-structures in Silicon”DKK 3,681,806

Technical University of Denmark, Department of ChemistryProfessor Jens Øllgaard Duus“Structure to Function in Chemistry and Biology – new generation NMR at DTU”DKK 16,000,000

University of Copenhagen, Department of Plant and Environmental SciencesAssociate Professor Peter Stougaard“Microbial Communication – a key to the development of novel sustainable agri- and aquaculture practices using biological control bacteria”DKK 6,020,270

University of Copenhagen, Department of BiologyProfessor Karsten Kristiansen“Fundamental Processes Underlying the Biophysical Behavior of Proteins”DKK 12,000,000

THE VILLUM FOUNDATION’s Young Investigator ProgrammeDKK 95,494,553

THE VILLUM FOUNDATION’s Postdoc Programme 2014-2015DKK 60,000,000

Aarhus University, Department of Physics and AstronomyProfessor Klaus MølmerVILLUM Centre of Excellence for Quantum Scale Optical Processes - QUSCOPEDKK 29,975,641

University of Copenhagen, Department of Plant and Environmental SciencesProfessor Birger Lindberg Møller VKR Center of Excellence for Bio-Active Plants II: Plant PlasticityDKK 30,000,000

University of Southern Denmark, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular BiologyProfessor Ole Nørregaard JensenVillum Center for Bioanalytical SciencesDKK 60,000,000

Technical University of Denmark, Department of Civil EngineeringProfessor Henrik Stang DTU Center for Advanced Structural and Material TestingDKK 76,000,000

TECHNICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES

The Villum Kann Rasmussen Annual Award for Technical and Scientific ResearchProfessor Frede Blaabjerg, Aalborg UniversityDKK 5,000,000 University of Copenhagen, Department of Veterinary Disease BiologyProfessor Kurt Buchmann “The Zebrafish Research Model – A holistic mirror of intricate physiological reactions in vertebrates”DKK 2,424,000

Aarhus University, Department of GeoscienceAssociate Professor Thomas UlrichAn Analytical Facility for Trace Elements Based on Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass SpectrometryDKK 3,967,287

Aarhus University, Department of ChemistryProfessor Bo Brummerstedt IversenTransmission Electron MicroscopeDKK 12,700,000

University of Copenhagen, Department of Plant and Environmental SciencesAssociate Professor Thomas Günther Pomorski“Dissecting the Role of ATP Binding Cassette (ABC) Proteins in Cellular Sterol Transport and Sequestration”DKK 5,018,390

University of Copenhagen, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management Professor Erik Dahl Kjær“Trees for the Future Forests”DKK 5,900,000

University of Copenhagen, Department of ChemistryProfessor Mogens Brøndsted Nielsen“Development of New Advanced Materials: Two-dimensional Carbon-Rich Sheets and Networks Functionalized with Redox-Active Tetrathiafulvalene Groups”DKK 3,457,301

Aarhus University, Department of Physics and AstronomyAssociate Professor Georg Morten Bruun“Quantum Test Beds”DKK 3,104,231

Grants 2013In 2013, the two foundations made 505 donations worth a total of DKK 1,181,716,148 and over the course of the year they received a total of 1,615 applications. The donations are specified in the following. For further information about the donations, please visit www.villumfonden.dk or www.veluxfonden.dk.

VILLUM FOUNDATIONDonations from the VILLUM FOUNDATION totalled DKK 941,672,779 in 2013.

2 8 G R A N T S 2 0 1 3 2 9V I L L U M F O U N D AT I O N A N D V E L U X F O U N D AT I O N

SOCIAL PROJECTS

SOZE (Society of Citizens Assisting Migrants), Czech Republic“Young immigrants in need”DKK 2,577,225

United World Colleges InternationalThe UWC young change makers’ programmeDKK 8,026,250

Nobody’s Children Foundation, Poland“Safe Childhood” – small grants distribution programmeDKK 12,191,250

Hungarian Interchurch Aid, Hungary“From institutional care to independent life – job creation by establishing a social farm in south Hungary”DKK 7,088,625

Camp Europe Education Non-Profit Llc, Hungary“Investing in a secure future”DKK 7,702,430

Qeqqata Kommunia (Municipality of Qeqqata)“iPads in primary schools and day care centres – a giant step within IT in Greenland”DKK 17,400,000

United Way Romania, Romania“Education and health for poor children and families”DKK 3,870,100

UNICEF Bulgaria Country Office, Bulgaria“Breaking the cycle – prevention of child abandonment and support to most-at-risk families with young children in Shumen region, Bulgaria”DKK 11,990,000

Bátor Tábor Foundation, Hungary“Expanding the capacities of Bátor Tábor”DKK 2,650,000

Van Helyed a Közös Jövönként Alapitvány, Hungary“You have a place – educational network”DKK 7,639,215

City of Partizanske, Slovakia“Improving sports facilities of elementary school of Radovan Kaufmann for students and for the community”DKK 6,300,000

Roma Education Fund, HungaryPedagogy scholarship programme for Hungary, Czech Republic and SlovakiaDKK 9,042,500

Stowarzyszenie Ekologiczno-Kulturalne ZIARNO, Poland“Organic production folk high school as an innovative method of young adults’ education”DKK 7,787,500

Habitat for Humanity, Bulgaria“Social protection and alleviation from deprivation for at-risk children and adolescents in Bulgaria through improving living conditions and other community based support”DKK 6,673,750

ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY

North Sea Foundation Senior Fisheries Expert Christine Absil“Greening European Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy Regionally”DKK 4,378,001

Danish Nature AgencyDitte Mandøe Christensen“Pre-project: Nordic Kattegat Expedition – 100 years after Petersen”DKK 1,053,944

ECOS – the European Environmental Citizens’ Organisation for StandardisationSecretary-General Laura Degallaix“Ensuring proper risk evaluation of nanomaterials to foster regulation of their production and use”DKK 4,759,658

Aarhus UniversitySenior Scientist Rasmus Ejrnæs“Biowide”DKK 12,646,600

Green Budget EuropeVice President Kai Schlegelmilch“Communicating and realizing the benefits and potential of EFR in Europe”DKK 5,156,218

European Environmental BureauSecretary General Jeremy Wates“Boosting Ecosystem Resilience”DKK 5,308,000

Greenland Institute of Natural ResourcesDirector Klaus Nygaard“Capacity building”DKK 3,015,653

CDPCatherine Sturgess“Carbon Disclosure Project”DKK 5,762,000

University of Copenhagen, Sustainability Science CenterProfessor Katherine Richardson“Building bridges to catalyze sustainable development”DKK 5,780,000

Carbon War RoomDirector of Development Ann Davlin“Founders’ Circle”DKK 5,900,000

Danish Board of Technology FoundationProject Manager Bjørn Bedsted“World Wide Views on biodiversity – bridging phase” DKK 800,000

Copenhagen Business SchoolDirector of Dean’s Office, Research Karina Bech SørensenVELUX Professorship of Corporate SustainabilityDKK 15,262,438


UNICEF, Romania“Second decade, second chance”DKK 7,291,250

ZPMP, SlovakiaCentre for preparation and employment of people with intellectual disabilityDKK 15,560,000

SOCIA, Slovakia“Early childhood intervention in Slovakia”DKK 7,975,150

Hope and Homes for Children, Romania“Investing in children – national childcare system reform in Romania”DKK 8,020,000

Hand in Hand Foundation, Hungary“FECSKE services”DKK, 4,065,747

OTHER DONATIONS

4. MAJ KOLLEGIETChairman of the Board Christian Staugaard Nielsen “Renovation and modernisation of communal areas”DKK 10,600,000

Technical University of Denmark, Department of PhysicsProject Manager Louise Haaning “Denmark’s first hands-on high school science lab equipped with electron microscopes” DKK 5,850,000

Københavns Universitets Kollegiesamvirke af 1983, Elers KollegiumLaw Student/Director Fundi Jonas Bruun“Renovation of kitchen-, shower- and toilet facilities”DKK 500,000

The Danish Multiple Sclerosis SocietyDirector Mette Bryde Lind“Modernisation of 44 holiday homes in Dronningens Ferieby, Grenaa” DKK 4,000,000

The Universe FoundationPresident Peter Skat-Rørdam “Making sense of natural science – online upgrading of natural science skills for primary school teachers”DKK 3,145,000

University of Copenhagen, Department of Political ScienceProfessor of International Relations Ole WæverThe international conference “An Open World: Science, Technology and Society in the Light of Niels Bohr’s Thoughts”DKK 750,000

University of Copenhagen, Natural History Museum of DenmarkDirector Morten Meldgaard “The establishment of a new Natural History Museum of Denmark”DKK 250,000,000

Euroscience Open Forum 2014, Steering CommitteeChampion, Professor Klaus Bock“Euroscience Open Forum 2014 to be held in Copenhagen on 21 – 26 June 2014” DKK 500,000 (and DKK 1,500,000 from the VELUX FOUNDATION in a joint donation)

THE VILLUM FOUNDATION: VKR CENTRES OF EXCELLENCE 2004-2012

Name of Centre Head of Centre Institution Grant yearGrant

(DKK mio.) Research Area

1 CLIMAITE - Centre on Biological Effects of Climate Change

Claus Beier Risø-DTU 2004 / 2007 / 2010

53.0 Experimental field studies on effects of climate change on ecosystems

2 BioNET - Centre for Biophysics

Mogens Høgh Jensen Niels Bohr Institute, KU

2004 25.0 Experimental and theoretical investiga-tions of biosystems at the molecular level

3 CLEAR - Centre for Lake Restoration

Frede Ø. Andersen Dept. of Biol-ogy, SDU

2006 / 2011

50.0 Development of methods for restoration of polluted lakes

4 CREAM - Centre for Environmental and Agricultural Microbiology

Jan Sørensen Dept. of Ecology, LIFE, KU

2006 / 2011

43.0 Microbiological investigations of soil pollution with organic xenobiotics

5 CDSB - Centre for Disease Systems Biology

Søren Brunak CBS-DTU 2007 24.2 Studies on the human genome in relation to growth and reproduction

6 HOBE - Centre for Hydrology

Karsten Høgh Jensen Dept. of Geology, KU

2007 / 2011

64.8 Groundwater fluxes in the watershed Skjern River

7 ProActivePlants - Centre for Proactive Plants/ Plant Plasticity - Centre for Plant Plasticity

Birger Lindberg Møller Plant Biology, LIFE, KU

2008 / 2013

55.0 Development of new plants with higher yields and useful chemical compounds

8 NATEC - Centre for Nanophotonics for Terabit Communications

Jesper Mørk DTU Fotonik 2008 25.0 Research in fotons on a short time scale for new communication systems

9 MTLAB - Centre for Modelling of Information Technology

Flemming Nielson DTU Infor-matics

2008 25.0 Development of datalogical models for simulation and analysis of future IT systems

10 NAMEC - Centre for NAnoMEChanical sensors and actuators

Anja Boisen DTU-Nano-tech

2009 28.0 Development of nano-mechanical, ultra sensitive sensors to be used for medical treatment

11 CSGB - Centre for Stochastic Geometry and Advanced Bioimaging geometri og avanceret bioimaging

Eva B. Vedel Jensen Dept. of Mathemat-ics, AU

2010 25.0 Development of mathematical methods for analysis of biological tissue using advanced microscopy

12 Ocean Life - Centre for Ocean Life

Thomas Kiørboe DTU AQUA 2011 30.0 Fundamental biological processes and development of predictive models for marine ecosystems

13 BioNEC - Centre for Biomolecular Nanoscale Engineering

Jesper Wengel Dept. of Physics, SDU

2012 30.0 Interdisciplinary studies of DNA chemistry, lipid chemistry, protein chemistry and nanotechnology

14 QUSCOPE - Centre for Quantum Scale Optical Processes

Klaus Mølmer Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, AU

2013 30.0 Theory reserch center for the interaction between quantum systems and light


THE VILLUM FOUNDATION’S YOUNG INVESTIGATOR PROGRAMME 2013

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS

Name Project University Department Grant (DKK)

Mikael Rørdam An-dersen

Identifying the genetic basis for eukaryotic speciation and genus formation using a unique high resolution DNA-compendium

Technical University of Denmark

Systems Biology

6,866,416

Christer S. Ejsing Characterizing the regulatory circuitry of global lipid metabolism

University of Southern Denmark

Department of Biochemi stry and Molecular Biology 5,313,000

Stephan Sylvest Keller Intelligent 3D cell scaffolds for environmental applications


Nanotech6,995,115

Nicolaj Krog Larsen Glacial history of the Northeast Greenland ice sheet and its contribution to sea level change during the last 11.700 years

Aarhus University Department of Geoscience

6,992,118

Mark Rudner Quantum dynamics in non-equilibrium systems University of Copenhagen Niels Bohr Institute 6,964,987

Elizaveta Semenova QUantum dot Energy level Engineering for laser applicatioNs on InP and Si platforms (QUEENs)


Department of Photonics Engineering 6,977,938

Simon Stisen SPAtial Calibration and Evaluation in distributed hydrological modeling using satellite remote sensing data (SPACE)

GEUS Department of Hydrology

6,964,400

POSTDOCS

Name Project University Department Grant (DKK)

Nika Akopian Quantum network of artificial atoms Technical University of Denmark

Department of Photonics Engineering 3,997,067

Wouter Krogh Boomsma

Unlocking the potential of Monte Carlo in molecular simulation

University of Copenhagen Department of Biology3,989,688

Rute Fonseca Characterizing the differences and similarities between the genomes of industrially relevant micro-organisms originating from extreme environments

University of Copenhagen Department of Biology

3,962,379

Rasmus Heller A genomic approach to study and conserve the biodiversity of the African megafauna

University of Copenhagen Department of Biology3,591,203

Michael J. Kastoryano Dissipative Engineering of Topological phases of matter

University of Copenhagen Niels Bohr Institute3,801,700

Nina Lock Photocatalytic low-dimensional hybrid organic-inorganic materials

Aarhus University iNANO3,868,354

Anders Østergaard Madsen

Dynamic quantum crystallography: Direct insights into the properties of crystalline materials.

University of Copenhagen Department of Chemistry 3,990,421

Kim Lau Nielsen A New phenomenon Yet to be resolved in ductile PLATE tearing (AnyPLATE)


Mechanical Engineering1,931,688

Signe Normand Bridging Scales to Understand and Predict Arctic Vegetation Under Climate Change (BRISCA)

Aarhus University Department of Bioscience3,999,906

Ulf R. Pedersen Crystallization studied by interface pinning: from ab initio to coarse grained models

Roskilde University Department of Science, Systems and Models 3,999,200

Christian Mac Ørum Mosdal

Onset and duration of the greatest speciation event of the Phanerozoic: Were present day biodiversity levels reached 420 million years ago?

University of Copenhagen Natural History Museum of Denmark

3,742,494

Dorthe B. Ravnsbæk Novel materials for high capacity batteries - Going beyond lithium

Aarhus University iNANO3,830,011

Sofia Ribeiro Primary producers under thinning ice - past responses and future projections for High Arctic Greenland

GEUS Department of Marine Geology and Claciology 3,716,468

THE VILLUM FOUNDATION’S POSTDOC PROGRAMME 2013: INDIVIDUAL SCHOLARSHIPS

Name PhD institution Postdoctoral institution Project

Thea Østergaard Bechshøft Aarhus University University of Alberta, Canada

Stress in Polar Bears: Novel Approaches and Cross-population Comparisons

Jakob Gath University of Copenhagen Ecole Polytechnique, France Novel Techniques in Holography for Particle Physics

Nadia Glæsner University of Copenhagen University of Copenhagen Small-scale P Availability at Intact Soil Macropore surfaces Using DGT

Camilla Juul Hansen Ludwig Maximilian Univer-sity, Germany

University of Copenhagen Understanding the Origin and Evolution of Heavy Elements in the Early Universe

Sara Fasmer Hansen Université Joseph Fourier, France

University of Copenhagen Disulfide Proteome – a Key to Understanding Protein ComplexFormation in Plant Cell Wall Biosynthesis

Erik Donovan Hedegård University of Southern Denmark

Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule, Switzerland

Safe-guarding plant diversity for the future: integrating big data into nature management

Naia Morueta Holme Aarhus University University of California, USA

Position Dependent Total Scattering Studies of Nanoscale Structure-Property Relationships in Functional Materials

Kirsten Marie Ørnsbjerg Jensen

Aarhus University Columbia University, USA Anisotropic Mesh Adaptation and Topology Optimization

Kristian Ejlebjærg Jensen Technical University of Denmark

Imperial College London, England

Advanced Photonics Platform for Single Cell Analysis

Martin Verner Gammel-gaard Kristensen

Aarhus University University of St. Andrews, Scotland

Population Genetics Across Two Decades and the Species’ Range for the Endangered Redcockaded woodpecker

Julia Thidamarth Vilstrup Mouatt

University of Copenhagen Oregon State University, USA

The Geodynamic Setting During Formation and Stabilisation of Late Archaean Continental Crust

Tomas Næraa University of Copenhagen Lund University, Sweden The Geodynamic Setting During Formation and Stabilisation of Late Archaean Continental Crust

Esben Paul Krogh Olsen Technical University of Denmark

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Improving the Field of Transition Metal Catalyzed C-N and C-F Bond Formations

Trine Puggaard Petersen University of Southern Denmark

Ludwig Maximilians Univer-sity, Germany

Flow Chemistry Methods for the Generation and Use of Lithium, Magnesium and Zinc Organometallic Intermediates

Christian Poulsen University of Copenhagen University of California, USA

Dynamic flow of miRNA translocation into cytoplasm, investigated by different state of the art microscopy techniques including Raster Image correlation spectroscopy and pair-correlation spectroscopy

Martin Krøyer Rasmussen Aarhus University University of Montpellier, France

Importance of Gender and Diet on Hepatic Detoxification

Dorthe Bomholdt Ravns-bæk

Aarhus University Aarhus Universitet In Operando Studies of Olivine-based Cathode Materials for Lithium Batteries

University of Copenhagen Columbia University, USA Engineering Vascular Networks Optimized for Specific Tissues

Michaela Schiller University of Copenhagen Swedish University of Agri-cultural Sciences, Sweden

Pyrosequencing for Improved Profiling of Fungal DNA in Plants and Plant Products

Jan Stanstrup University of Copenhagen Fondazione Edmund Mach, Italy

Most Important Compound Found, Identity Unknown! How Sharing Available Knowledge Will Bring Us Forward

Kristoffer Szilas University of Copenhagen Stanford University, USA The Role of Archaean Peridotites in the Formation of the Subcontinental Lithospheric Mantle in SW Greenland

Mai Winstrup University of Copenhagen University of Washington, USA

Harmonizing Timescales from Greenland and Antarctic Ice Cores: Reconciling the Greenland and Antarctic Layer-counted Ice-core Timescales over the Deglaciation by use of an Objective Bayesian Method


Guild of the Nydam BoatChairman Vincent JessenBuilding of a boathouse for the copy of the Nydam BoatDKK 150,000

Nexus Kommunikation A/SEbbe KyrøTV-series entitled “Resistance – the third story”DKK 100,000

Colin Archer’s GuildAnne-Mette FlyvbjergCompletion of the ship “Colin Archer”DKK 150,000

Activity Center SkovgaardenHead of Center Merete HarrigReestablishment of wood workshopDKK 144,100

GERONTOLOGY AND GERIATRICS

Aarhus University, Institute for Clinical Medicine/Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN)Head of Center, Clinical Professor Leif ØstergaardEstablishment of Aarhus Research Centre for Brain Aging and Dementia – ARCADIA DKK 9,850,000

Bispebjerg Hospital, Laboratory of Stereology and NeuroscienceProfessor Bente Pakkenberg“Long-term survival of new brain cells – a stereological study”DKK 964,415

The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation - School of ArchitectureArchitect and City Planner Deane SimpsonPublication of the research project: “Gerontopia: Retirement Utopias of the Young-Old”DKK 334,500

Odense University Hospital and the University of Southern DenmarkClinical Associate Professor Jens-Ulrik Rosholm“Hospital at home (HH) for acute medical older patients”DKK 2,313,564

University of Copenhagen, Department of Media, Cognition and CommunicationAssociate Professor Christa Lykke Christensen“Ageing and old age in the media and older people’s media consumption”DKK 2,000,000 (Additionally DKK 4,522,252 granted from the Foundation’s Humanities Programme)

ACTIVE ELDERLY PEOPLE

In 2013, 347 donations were made in support of elderly people’s activity worth a total of DKK 7,990,400. Of these, the following large donations were made.

Ebbe PreislerPublication of the book “Happy End – about pulp literature, weekly magazines, and a family biography”DKK 25,000

Leif Møller MadsenPublication of the book “From moped to wheelchair – the sequel”DKK 50,000

Sven ThorsenPublication of the book “Inshore shooting in Denmark”DKK 75,000

Ib Ivar DahlPublication of the book “Wadden Sea Tales”DKK 25,000

Hobro Rowing and Kayak ClubPurchase of carbon fibre rowing boat for senior club membersDKK 125,000

Copenhagen Film CompanyAnna Elisabeth JessenSequel of three films “Strong elderly women”DKK 200,000

Foreningen Tandrødderne (The Association the Tooth Necks)Dentist Jørgen LætgaardDental treatment of homeless people, drug abusers and socially vulnerable people DKK 200,000

Foreningen Peqatigiiffik Neriusaaq (The Association Peqatigiiffik Neriusaaq)Building a house for elderly people at Anglarsimaffik Neriusaaq in GreenlandDKK 250,000

TV-Glad Fonden (TV-Happy Foundation)Editor in Chief Mogens Svane PetersenThe project “Active elderly storytellers – a history of people with learning disabilities”DKK 250,000

Foreningen Hygum HjemstavnsgårdPartial replacement of thatched roofDKK 170,000

Fredericia Dame Roklub (Ladies’ Rowing Club)Purchase of new rowing boat for senior membersDKK 100,000

VELUX FOUNDATIONDonations from the VELUX FOUNDATION totalled DKK 240,043,369 in 2013.


HUMANITIES

Invited core group projects:

Aarhus University, Department of Psychology and Behavioural SciencesAssociate Professor Dorthe Kirkegaard Thomsen“Chapters in life stories”DKK 3,991,681

Aarhus University, Department of Political Science and GovernmentAssociate Professor Michael Bang Petersen“How to win with words?”DKK 5,832,460

University of Copenhagen, Department of Political ScienceAssociate Professor Christian F. Rostbøll“COMPROMISE – Democratic Ideals and Real Politics”DKK 5,417,750

University of Copenhagen, Department of SociologyAssociate Professor Poul Poder“Violence in the street, the street violence – street violence in a situational perspective” DKK 5,863,443

University of Copenhagen, Faculty of TheologyProfessor Arne Grøn“Self-understanding and Self-alienation: Existential Hermeneutics and Psychopathology”DKK 5,305,042

University of Southern Denmark, Department of HistoryProfessor Dietrich Jung“Modernity, Islamic Traditions and the Good Life: Exploring the construction of meaningful modern Muslim selfhoods”DKK 4,987,500

University of Southern Denmark, Department of Design and CommunicationProfessor Johannes Wagner“Social objects for innovation and learning”DKK 5,995,439

University of Southern Denmark, Department for the Study of CultureAssociate Professor Anne Scott Sørensen“Towards a new idea of culture and new forms of culture communication” DKK 4,846,550

University of Copenhagen, Department of Computer ScienceProfessor Jørgen Peter Bansler“Computational Artifacts: Towards a design-oriented theory of computational artifacts in cooperative work practice” DKK 5,841,666

Interdisciplinary projects between the VELUX FOUNDATION’s Humanities Programme and other programmes:

University of Southern Denmark, Medical Biotechnical CenterProfessor Bente Finsen“Serotin modulation of neurogenesis-coupled microglial responses in Alzheimer’s-like disease in mice”DKK 2,270,577

University of Copenhagen, Department of PsychologyAssociate Professor Jesper Dammeyer et. al.“Sensory loss in older people – a health psychological study of older citizens with vision and hearing impairment”DKK 5,131,524

University of Southern Denmark, Clinical DepartmentManager, Professor Torben Barington“Development of treatment for chronic lymphatic cancer using the patient’s own immune system”DKK 1,704,150

OPHTHALMOLOGY

University of Copenhagen, SUND, Department for Neuroscience and PharmacologyAssociate Professor Miriam Kolko “Glaucoma - importance of mitochondrial function in Müller cells’ ability to protect retinal ganglion cells”DKK 3,841,007

Rigshospitalet, Department of Kennedy CentreAdjunct Professor Karen Brøndum-NielsenIdentification and examination of gene mutations which lead to retinal diseases and loss of vision” DKK 13,306,650

Odense University Hospital, Department of Ophthalmology EClinical Associate Professor Jakob Grauslund“Reduction of loss of vision and laser induced side-effects through implementation of individually based laser treatment for diabetic retinal diseases” DKK 4,999,700

Aarhus University, Department of BiomedicinePost-Doctoral Fellow Tina Storm“Megalin - cause and cure? Megalin’s role in ocular health, disease and drug delivery”DKK 1,473,100


ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY

Varde MunicipalityTeam Leader, Environment Poul Sig Vadsholt “Preproject – Restoration of Holme River”DKK 515,000

City of Copenhagen, The Energy- and Water Science CenterProject Manager Jesper Steenberg“The Climate Adaptation Science Centre”DKK 2,000,000

Sustainable Energy, UngEnergiProject Manager Sigrid Soelberg Vesterberg“Sustainable Youth”DKK 6,552,850

SustainableEnergyPolitical Coordinator Gunnar Boye“Quick Transition to Renewable Energy - getting out of the fossil blind alley”DKK 913,700

DR – Danish Broadcasting CorporationConsultant Elisabeth Steiner“The great transition”DKK 2,681,000

Nordic Food LabDirector Michael Bom Frøst“Discerning Taste: Deliciousness as an Argument for Entomophagy”DKK 3,646,888

Aalborg University, Institute for PlanningProfessor Inge Røpke“Ecological macro-economy and a sustainable transition”DKK 5,368,501

Samsø Energy Academy Director Søren Hermansen“Local pioneer communities”DKK 1,000,000

Landsforeningen Praktisk ØkologiChair Trine Krebs“Open gardens”DKK 3,000,000

DR – Danish Broadcasting CorporationConsultant Elisabeth Steiner“The great transition – bridging phase”DKK 1,053,125

SOCIAL PROJECTS

DanChurchSocial Renovation of “Kafé Klaus” in Roskilde DKK 468,610

The Self-governing Institution “House of Ecological Inspiration” “Ecology from Children’s Perspectives” DKK 654,000

The Self-governing Institution “Children, Youth, Mourning” “Development and implementation of evidential methodology DKK 4,295,000

The National Association “LEV” “Development and certification of examination material and purchasing of SmartBoards” DKK 729,000

University of Copenhagen, Department of Media, Cognition and CommunicationAssociate Professor Christa Lykke Christensen “Ageing and old age in the media and old people’s use of the media” DKK 4,522,252 (Additionally DKK 2,000,000 granted from the Foundation’s Gerontology Programme)

Aarhus University, Department of Aesthetics and CommunicationAssociate Professor Peter Lauritsen“Tele-dialogue with children and youth in foster care” DKK 4,604,114 (Granted in corporation with the VELUX FOUNDATION’s Social Programme)

Other projects:

University of Southern Denmark, Department of HistoryProfessor Per BojeAdditional grant for the publication of the book: “History of Danish Industries from 1750” DKK 100,000

The Royal Library, Research DepartmentMorten Møller, MAAdditional grant for research and publication of “Regards from Moscow”DKK 43,350

Roskilde University, Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies Associate Professor Torben BraünerResearch project “Hybrid-Logical Proofs at Work in Cognitive Psychology”DKK 1,758,879

Danish Film InstituteHead of Research Lars-Martin SørensenAdditional grant for publication of the book “Cinema History’s Five Neglected Years”DKK 83,040

Archivist Lene Halskov HansenAdditional grant for publication of “Ballads and chain dance – two aspects of Danish Folk Music Culture” DKK 111,400

University of Southern Denmark, Department for the Study of CultureProfessor Anne-Marie MaiAdditional grant for two TV programmes on research and the publication of the book “Where literature takes place” DKK 150,000

Aalborg University, Department of Political ScienceProfessor Anette Borchorst“The Danish political gender equality regime”DKK 5,236,171

Euroscience Open Forum 2014, Steering CommitteeChampion, Professor Klaus Bock“Euroscience Open Forum 2014 to be held in Copenhagen on 21 – 26 June 2014” DKK 1,500,000 (and DKK 500,000 from the VILLUM FOUNDATION as a joint donation)

Museum SonderjyllandCurator Pernille Kruse“Material culture and social organisation in the Bronze Age, example Brunde/Egelund”DKK 854,264


DanChurchSocial “Christmas aid and follow-up in collaboration with the families” DKK 1,200,000

Red Cross “Christmas aid and follow-up in collaboration with the families” DKK 2,200,000

Kallerupvej – counselling and contact centre“Changing Family Life – when young families experience dementia”DKK 1,090,000

Hinnerup Residential College“Knowledge-based network project about autism and ageing”DKK 4,864,177

Aalborg University, Department of Sociology and Social WorkAssociate Professor Maria Appel Nissen“Humanity in social work – welfare policies, technology and knowledge”DKK 5,268,375 (Granted in corporation with the VELUX FOUNDATION’s Humanities Programme)

Danish Lung Association“From loneliness to liveliness through virtual communities”DKK 3,046,200

The Social Capital FoundationChair Gurli Martinussen“Social StartUp – the first Danish accelerator for social innovators”DKK 21,969,667

The Association Exit Denmark “Establishment of socio-economic business focusing on historical toys” DKK 300,000

The Association Qaravane Socio-economic business “Place de Bleu” DKK 3,900,000

The Self-governing Institution Be My Eyes “Development of communication platform for blind and visually impaired persons” DKK 1,883,750

The National Council for Children “Children as Experts” DKK 11,395,000

The Association Immigrant Women’s Centre The socio-economic business “Send more spices”, “From occasional cook to employed kitchen assistant” DKK 3,498,808

Aarhus University, Department of Aesthetics and CommunicationAssociate Professor Peter Lauritsen “Telephone dialogue with children and young people living in foster homes” DKK 4,604,114 (Granted in corporation with the VELUX FOUNDATION’s Humanities Programme)

Askovgården Foundation, Dialogue against Violence “Qualified treatment of violent individuals, violent love – assistance to young violent individuals” DKK 9,362,600

The Association Opgang2 Turnéteater “New horizons – art and culture as connecting links” DKK 2,800,000

LMS – Association against Eating Disorders “Establishment of Self-Esteem Workshop” DKK 731,000

Specialist People FoundationThe socio-economic business “The Specialists” and the project “1000 jobs in Denmark” DKK 5,348,620

The Association Copenhagen Project House Additional grant for “Tagdel.dk – first platform for online voluntary work in Denmark” DKK 482,910

Salvation Army “Christmas aid and follow-up in collaboration with the families” DKK 2,450,000

Danish People’s Aid “Christmas aid and follow-up in collaboration with the families” DKK 1,650,000

The Foundation’s newly renovated domicile in Søborg, Denmark, where Villum Kann Rasmussen established his company in 1951. Photo: DTZ


Year Title and name Project University Institute/Department Amount (DKK)

2012 Associate Professor Johanna Seibt

As if it were a person - Social robotics and human self-understanding

Aarhus University Department of Culture and Society5,895,986

2012 Associate Professor Birgit Anette Rasmussen

Individual, kin and family in prehistoric Europe

University of Copenhagen Department of Scandinavian Studies and Linguistics 6,115,032

2012 Associate Professor Peter Bakker

Cognitive creolistics Aarhus University Department of Aesthetics and Communication 5,734,073

2012 Professor Stuart Ward Embers of Empire: The Receding Frontiers of Post-Imperial Britain

University of Copenhagen Department of English, German and Romance Studies 4,846,501

2012 Associate Professor Hagen Schulz-Forberg

Towards Good Society Aarhus University Department of Culture and Society4,942,501

2012 Associate Professor Sune Haugbølle

The Production of Secular Ideology in the Levant

University of Copenhagen Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies 4,000,000

2012 Professor Thomas Højrup The neoculturation of life-modes University of Copenhagen SAXO Institute5,600,000

2013 Associate Professor Dorthe Kirkegaard Thomsen

Chapters in life stories Aarhus University Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences 3,991,681

2013 Associate Professor Michael Bang Petersen

How to win with words? Aarhus University Department of Political Science and Government 5,832,460

2013 Associate Professor Christian F. Rostbøll

COMPROMISE – Democratic Ideals and Real Politics

University of Copenhagen Department of Political Science5,417,750

2013 Associate Professor Poul Poder

Violence in the street, the street violence - street violence in a situational perspective

University of Copenhagen Department of Sociology5,863,443

2013 Professor Arne Grøn Self-understanding and Self-alienation: Existential Hermeneutics and Psychopathology

University of Copenhagen Faculty of Theology

5,305,042

2013 Professor Dietrich Jung Modernity, Islamic Traditions and the Good Life: Exploring the construction of meaningful modern muslim selfhoods

University of Southern Denmark Department of History

4,987,500

2013 Professor Johannes Wagner

Social objects for innovation and learning University of Southern Denmark Department of Design and Communication 5,995,439

2013 Associate Professor Anne Scott Sørensen

Towards a new idea of culture and new forms of culture communication

University of Southern Denmark Department for the Study of Culture 4,846,550

2013 Professor Jørgen Peter Bansler

Computational Artifacts: Towards a design-oriented theory of computational artifacts in cooperative work practice

University of Copenhagen Department of Computer Science

5,841.666

Year Title and name Project University Institute/Department Amount (DKK)

2008 Professor Sverre Raffnsøe Management of self-management Copenhagen Business School Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy 6,399,682

2008 Associate Professor Klemens Kappel

The liberal democracy's epistemo logical dimension

University of Copenhagen Department of Media, Cognition and Communication 3,042,832

2008 Professor Frederik Stjernfelt Cognitive and phenomenological aesthetics

Aarhus University Center for Semiotics, Nordic Institute 5,560,000

2008 Associate Professor Steen Ebbesen

Causal history inverted University of Copenhagen SAXO Institute5,675,500

2008 Professor Uffe Juul Jensen Risk and hope in disease prevention and health promotion

Aarhus University Department of Philosophy and History of Ideas 3,901,322

2009 Associate Professor Teresa Cadierno & Professor Johannes Wagner

Usage-based Second Language Acquisition

University of Southern Denmark Institute of Business Communication and Information Studies

4,927,107

2009 Associate Professor Anders-Christian Jacobsen

Transformation of religious identity in Greco-Roman cultural circles

Aarhus University Faculty of Theology4,989,000

2009 Associate Professor Robert Klemmensen

Nature or nurture - determinants of political and social values

University of Southern Denmark Department of Political Science and Public Management 5,435,000

2009 Professor Anne-Marie Mai Welfare Tales University of Southern Denmark Department of Literature, Media and Cultural Studies) 4,736,000

2009 Professor Mogens Müller The Gospels as the Bible Re-written University of Copenhagen Faculty of Theology4,701,335

2010 Professor Andreas Roepstorff

Technologies of the Mind Aarhus University Department of Anthropology, Archaeology and Linguistics) 5,000,000

2010 Associate Professor Mikkel Thorup

Economic Argumentation Aarhus University Department of Philosophy and the History of Ideas 4,639,936

2010 Associate Professor Johnny Kondrup

Danish Edition History University of Copenhagen Department of Scandinavian Studies and Linguistics 5,999,634

2010 Associate Professor Matthew James Driscoll

Stories for all times: The Icelandic Fornaldarsögur

University of Copenhagen Department of Scandinavian Research5,000,000

2010 Professor Bodil Nistrup Madsen

Establishment of a Danish terminological data bank

Copenhagen Business School Department of International Language Studies and Computational Linguistics 4,995,395

2010 Professor Paul du Gay What makes organization? Copenhagen Business School Department of Organization4,255,000

2010 Professor Dan Zahavi Empathy and Interpersonal Understanding University of Copenhagen Centre for Subjectivity Research6,600,000

2011 Associate Professor Kerstin Fischer

Construction Grammar and the Description of Situated Spoken Interaction

University of Southern Denmark Institute of Business Communication and Information Science 5,192,468

2011 Professor Hans Jeppe Jeppesen

The role of distributed leadership Aarhus University Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences 5,700,000

2011 Professor Hanne Foss Hansen

Crisis management: public-sector administration policy and organisation in a cost-cutting period

University of Copenhagen Department of Political Science and Public Management

5,232,161

2011 Associate Professor Christian Helms Jørgensen

Boys as the losers in the educational system?

Roskilde University Department of Psychology and Educational Studies 4,997,509

2011 Professor Erik Albæk Communicating the Economy University of Southern Denmark Department of Political Science and Public Management 5,822,000

2011 Professor Sverre Raffnsøe The Human Turn Copenhagen Business School Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy 5,570,136

2011 Professor Frederik Stjernfelt Humanomics: Mapping the Humanities Aarhus University Center for Semiotics 5,765,000

2011 Professor Poul Erik Mouritzen

Governance, Funding and Performance of Universities

University of Southern Denmark Department of Political Science and Public Management 4,974,572

THE VELUX FOUNDATION’S HUMANITIES INITIATIVE: CORE-GROUP GRANTS 2008-2013


from supported projectsPostcards

The Foundations support many more projects than can be described in the confines of this annual report. To give an impression of the range of the activities, however, the Foun-dations have asked a representative selection of the ongoing projects to send us postcards with snapshots of their activities.

New dimensions for chemistry at the University of Copenhagen When a chemist produces new molecules for pharmaceuticals, energy sources or materials, the crucial factor is how the individual atoms bond inside the molecule. Researchers and students at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen now have a means of gaining detailed insights into the spatial structure of molecules thanks to a grant from the VILLUM FOUNDATION. The grant made it possible to procure two new state-of-the-art X-ray dif-fractometers. With the aid of these instruments it is possible to map all details in the spatial structure of crystals at atomic level. These studies represent the most complete chemical analysis, as it provides exact data on the chemical bonds between atoms. The analysis will be used to deter-mine whether the bond created by a chemist is actually identical with the expected bond. These unique capabilities are keenly used by both faculty and students at the Department of Chemistry. Professor Sine Larsen DSc h.c., Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen. The Department was granted DKK 3,940,000 for the pro-curement of two X-ray diffractometers by the VILLUM FOUNDATION in 2012.

Students at the Department of Chemistry in the process of obtaining measurements with the aid of the two diffracto-meters. Photo: Jes Andersen, Department of Chemistry

4 6 P O S T C A R D S 4 7V I L L U M F O U N D AT I O N A N D V E L U X F O U N D AT I O N

Palpable sources in the history of blindnessHistorical sources consist not only of archival re-cords. In his research project on the history of blindness, historian Jan Eric Olsén draws on the physical objects that were used in teaching at the Institute for the Blind and Partially Sighted in Copenhagen. Models of plants and animals, special writing de-vices and maps with raised geographies comple-ment the archival records with a concrete and palpable dimension, emphasising the inherent relation between the sense of touch, the act of touching and the things that were touched, but

never looked at, by the blind. The project draws our attention to how the blind and visually impaired coped with everyday life during a period in which the visual sense gained cultural prominence through the introduction of new media such as photography and film. In 2013, the project was presented at international conferences in Paris and London.FD Jan Eric Olsén, Medical Musieon, Depart-ment of Public Health, University of Copenhagen. “Vision and touch: A material history of the world of blindness” was granted DKK 3,200,000 by the VELUX FOUNDATION in 2010.

Tactile model of a cabbage butterfly in wood and met-al. Probably late 19th century. Used at the Institute for the Blind and Partially Sighted, Copenhagen. Photo: Jacob Kjærgård

Tactile model of a globe in aluminium. Early 20th cen-tury. Used at the Institute for the Blind and Partially Sighted, Copenhagen. Photo: Jacob Kjærgård

The mystery of our colour visionOne single type of molecule in the eye is what gives us the ability to see all kinds of colours. Called ‘retinal’, this is one of nature’s fastest and most ef-ficient molecules at reacting to light quanta. But at atomic level, the ability of the eye to distinguish different colours remains a mystery. Thanks to a grant from the VILLUM FOUNDATION, it has now been possible to design brand new experiments at Aarhus University that will create vacuum conditions for seeing what actually goes on inside retinal molecules. The Aarhus researchers are investigating what enables us to see colours. But just as significant will be the experiments to reveal why the eye is so incredibly effective at converting light into nerve signals.This grant has made it possible to appoint a postdoctoral research fellow and procure a state-of-the-art femtosecond laser system capable of emit-ting ultrashort light pulses, with delivery set for June 2013. Applicants for the postdoctoral position were being interviewed at the time of writing, and SAPHIRA, the unique storage ring to keep the molecules trapped in vacuum conditions, has been built and commissioned and is now waiting in the basement of the Department of Physics and Astronomy – and it works!Professor Henrik Lund Andersen DSc, Department of Physics and Astrono-my, University of Aarhus. “Temporal studies of visual process photoresponse under vacuum conditions” was granted DKK 2,830,000 by the VILLUM FOUNDATION in 2012

The new SAPHIRA storage ring stores the eye’s reti-nal molecules that will be beamed with light from a new femtosecond laser system. Photo: Henrik Lund Andersen


The legacy of ballet master Flemming FlindtThe Danish and international ballet scene mourned the great loss of ballet master Flemming Flindt on his death in 2009 at the age of 72.Not only did he leave behind an immense production of ballets and theatrical performances with a posthumous reputation as the third-greatest ballet master and choreographer after Bournon-ville and Harald Lander, but was also an innovator of new musi-cal scores for a new choreographic vocabulary.Flemming Flindt’s residences in Copenhagen and Florida housed an immense collection of personal correspondence, notes, arti-cles and video material, which had essentially gone unnoticed: a valuable collection to be preserved for posterity.Clearly, for his heirs there was a cultural obligation to preserve, communicate and safeguard an interpretation of this unique col-lection in the context of ballet history.A project group was established with soloist Vivi Flindt as the obvious participant and with senior researcher Knud Arne Jür-gensen, DPhil as ballet historian to compile, register and eluci-date this splendid collection.With funding from the VELUX FOUNDATION, the work of registering and digitising around 320 old videotapes painted a picture of Flemming Flindt’s many lesser known relationships and ideas about creating ballets and other works with artists such as Benny Andersen, Ingmar Bergman, Knud Åge Riisager and Eugene Ionesco. An examination of the large body of letters, notes, articles and video footage, supplemented by Vivi Flindt’s insights and comments has provided a new appreciation of the world and personality of Flemming Flindt, and portray a more complete picture of his life’s work. The material inspired a new book about his life and artistry, as revealed by interviews with the artists he collaborated with.A project group composed of soloist Vivi Flindt, senior researcher Knud Arne Jürgensen, DPhil, and project coordinator Ole Brøn-dum-Nielsen. “The preservation of ballet master Flemming Flindt’s ballets” received a donation of DKK 300,000 from the VELUX FOUNDATION in 2011.

Knocking on doorsOvercoming their natural reservations about in-truding on privacy, resourceful Somali mothers are knocking on doors to talk to other mothers in neighbourhoods throughout Copenhagen. The project is called “Somali Mothers Building Bridges”, and that is exactly what these empow-ered Somali women are doing; bridging the gap between the most isolated Somali mothers and the society from which these women are margin-

alised. The 18 Somali bridge-builders are helping other mothers to connect with Danish society, when their children play truant, when their teen-age children fall into bad company or are threat-ened by crime – and not least when social services turn a deaf ear. Director Margrethe Wivel, Indvandrer Kvindecen-tret (Immigrant women’s centre). “Somali Moth-ers Building Bridges” received a donation of DKK 784,200 from the VELUX FOUNDATION in 2012.

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Bulgaria’s institutionalised infantsOver the last 50 years, a wide range of scientific studies have shown that a childhood spent in in-stitutions (orphanages) has a devastating impact on the child’s linguistic, social and emotional development. The Bucharest Early Intervention Study found that for every 2.6 months spent in an institution, a child will fall behind one month of normal growth because he or she will not re-ceive the love, care and individual attention that a family provides. As a consequence, few such children will ever reach their full potential.Penka was recently one of the 1,700 young chil-dren confined to an institution in Bulgaria. At 14 months, Penka was taken from her family and institutionalised because her mother could not afford the special formula she needed as a result of a milk allergy. Once in the institution, Penka began to suffer the developmental delays that are typical in institutionalised children. Fortunately, Penka had been placed in one of the eight institutions for infants which Hope and

Homes for Children, funded by Velux Founda-tions, are working to close. Children from the institutions are being reintegrated with their families, and their families given the support they need to keep their children. Those that can-not return to their parents are found caring fos-ter or adoptive families. With support, Penka’s mother was able to take back her daughter, who is now thriving. Hundreds more families in Bulgaria at risk of separation are also being assisted in improving their living conditions, family and social relation-ships, education, health and household econo-my. This family-based child welfare intervention is a new model of best practice that will replace institutional care in Bulgaria within the next ten years.Mark Cook, Founder President of Hope and Homes for Children. “Strategic De-Institutionalisation (DI) and Childcare Reform in Bulgaria” was granted DKK 7,397,355 over the period 2012-2013 by the VILLUM FOUNDATION.

Photo: Yavor Sedyankov / HHC


European Bison in Bornholm snowThe winter was long on the island of Bornholm – yet again. From before Christmas and until April, Bornholm’s largest forest, Almindingen, was cov-ered in snow. But following how the new inhabit-ants – seven European bison – made it through their first winter was intriguing. And it was heart-ening to find that they thrived in the snow, scrap-ing and gnawing away like there was no tomor-row! We now know that in winter especially, bison prefer to gnaw the bark from trees, and we know which varieties are their favourites. Come spring, their behaviour changes, and they tend to hide away, feeding more extensively on herbaceous plants and tree foliage. As an encouraging sign that they had settled in their new habitat, 7 bison had turned into 8. We now look forward to moni-toring their behaviour around the new little calf, and whether they continue to thrive among the hordes of visitors to the forest. Søren Friese, Forest Manager, Danish Nature Agency. “Bison on Bornholm” was granted DKK 4,000,000 by the VILLUM FOUNDATION in 2011.

Public sector under pressureStaff downsizing, new worktime rules, rent reduc-tions, mergers, centralisation and, albeit to a less-er extent, job losses, have in recent years become everyday life in the public sector where resources are in short supply. How are economisation and effectivisation challenges dealt with by the politi-cal and administrative executives? And what are the ultimate consequences of focusing short-term on staying within budget? Are factors such as organisational innovation and employee motiva-tion adversely affected? The project analyses these issues within both central and local government.Professor Hanne Foss Hansen, Department of Po-litical Science, University of Copenhagen. “Crisis management: Public administration policy and public organisation in a retrenchment period” re-ceived a grant of DKK 5,232,161 from the VELUX FOUNDATION in 2011.

Photo: iStockphotoPhoto: The project


Nietzsche mentoring SeebergNo Danish author was so definitively influenced by Frie-drich Nietzsche’s historic challenge against the founda-tions of Christianity, morality and aesthetics as was Peter Seeberg, who came from a devout Evangelical family in South Jutland. It may therefore seem paradoxical that the Danish Nietzsche-reception almost entirely overlooked Seeberg. But this is explained by the fact that previous research in his authorship did not have ready access to the archive; such access was not facilitated until the archival materials had been finally sorted and catalogued in 2005. In its initial phase, the project undertook subject-specific studies of the Peter Seeberg archive at Hald Hovedgaard, Viborg. A new thesis will document how Seeberg in hitherto unknown letters, diaries and unpublished man-uscripts, was formed by Nietzsche’s philosophy, and an analysis will show how he went on to remodel this influ-ence in the originality of his language use and the genre-reinvention of his writings from 1956 to 1997. The project is an archive-based study of Seeberg’s author-ship with a view to elucidating Seeberg’s Nietzschean view of the individual, history, creed, ethics and politics. The findings of the research have so far been presented at a conference on Nietzsche and Danish literature on 15 March 2013 at the University of Copenhagen, and in an article in the periodical Edda 2/2013.Postdoctoral researcher Anders Juhl Rasmussen, Department of Scandinavian Studies and Lin-guistics, University of Copenhagen. “Tradi-tions renewed. Language and genre in Peter Seeberg’s prose fiction” was granted DKK 1,127,429 by the VELUX FOUNDATION in 2011.

Peter Seeberg (1925-1999). Photo: Per Pejstrup, 1963

Mum?! Do I get to go to holiday camp?At the age of eight, Line herself sent an applica-tion to Red Cross Youth for one of the places at a summer camp. Line’s parents had neither the money nor the energy for family holidays and Line was sorry not to be having any summer holiday memories to share with her classmates. Line still recalls her sense of anticipation and de-light on opening the letter that read: Congratu-lations! You have a place at summer camp. Today, aged 23, Line is one of several hundred volunteers with the Danish Red Cross Youth

division, which organises memorable holidays for more than 1,200 deprived children and youth every summer. Red Cross Youth is using funding from the VILLUM FOUNDATION to extend its summer camps to cater for the hundred or so children whom the organisation has to turn down every year owing to the huge demand.Stine Buje Christensen, Communications Consul-tant, Red Cross Youth. “Summer camp and home-work café to boost social activities for the benefit of disadvantaged youth” was granted DKK 5,890,000 by the VILLUM FOUNDATION in 2011.

Sharing, caring and happiness are what count at Red Cross Youth summer camps, where young volunteers give more than 1,200 deprived children and youth a break from their everyday lives. Photo: Red Cross Youth


BY CARSTEN RAHBEK

Carsten Rahbek (born 1965), professor at the Natural History Mu-seum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen 2001, assistant profes-sor at Peking University 2012, and head of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Cli-mate (CMEC) 2010. He is among the 1% most-cited researchers in-ternationally, a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, and the recipient of numerous national and internatio-nal awards for research excellence.

Biology seeks to find as-yet unknown natural laws governing the distribution of life on Earth. With the aid of vast databas-es of species distribution, the latest DNA techniques and bio-informatics tools, researchers are now getting closer to the answer. Evolutionary processes and variation in the histor-ical climate play a greater role than previously assumed, where the focus was principally on the current climate. This research is essential for responding to the global biodiversity crisis, including climate change. Carsten Rahbek is the recipient of the Villum Kann Rasmussen Annual Award for Technical and Scientific Research for, not least, his research in this field. According to Carsten Rahbek, the DKK 2,500,000 award will be invested in research to better understand how the planet’s organisms move and adapt when their surroundings change.

The scientific collections in the world’s natural histo-ry museums contain unimagined volumes of verified information that is needed for answering some of the biggest biological questions today. Here is an im-age from the bird collections at the National Muse-um of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, which are the world’s third largest with more than 625,000 specimens. The bird collection at the National Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenha-gen, with more than 100,000 specimens, is also among the largest and most valuable in the world. Photo: ‘Roxie&BirdCollnFinalPrint’ by Chip Clark, Smithsonian

While the search goes on for life on Mars, we in-habit a planet that is largely unknown to us. Of the assumed 15-20 million species on Earth, only 10% have been described. The geographical distri-bution and biology is known for only 1% of these species. This unknown world was revealed to the Western World more than a century ago when Humboldt, Wallace and Darwin sailed off on their famous natural history expeditions. Com-ing as they did from the relatively low-diversity of European species, they were fascinated by the extreme diversity in the Tropics. They had only to travel another 100 km, and virtually all the lo-cal species would be novel and different. “Why so?” they asked themselves. Today we are still ask-ing: Why is the distribution of life on Earth so heterogeneous that a mountain forest in Ecuador smaller than a fair-sized European forest contains far more diverse bird species than the whole of Europe as far as the Urals? You can shake more species of insect from the crowns of a couple of trees in the Amazon than exist in the whole of Denmark. The three biologists each proposed a number of theories on patterns in the Earth’s dis-tribution of life. The most famous of these being the Theory of Evolution.

What determines the distribution of life on Earth?

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tribution of life, as we see it today, is largely a result of evolution over hundreds of millennia. The pat-tern has not been erased or rebalanced in adapta-tion to our present-day climate. Furthermore, our latest research suggests that variation in prehistoric climate is at least as significant as current variation.

How is this type of basic research of relevance to society?Our discoveries have significant value in predicting the effects of man-made global climate change, be-cause previous models have assumed an equilibrium between life and the present-day climate. This does not in any way imply that climate change will not entail radical changes for life on Earth. On the con-trary, empirical data from the last 20 years show that the changes will be immense. We also have an idea of the direction the changes will take, but cannot predict that many details. This will require a far bet-ter understanding of evolution and historical climate. As humans, we breathe air, drink water and eat –

typically without giving much thought to complex processes such as the circulation of matter in nature, how the functionality of ecosystems is linked to the species, and that the Earth’s ecosystems supply ‘free’ services corresponding to around half of the GDP consumed annually by mankind. The global community is facing major challenges and decisions which require insights into the more precise impacts of what is happening, and into the actions we take and the decisions we make. Our planet has previously sustained global changes, including climate change, and life on Earth is likely to survive. We know from studies of these changes that there are both winners and losers among the species. Homo sapiens coped eminently well with the last Ice Ages – better than the competition. The hy-pothesis to account for these empirical facts rests on the ability to think (bigger brain), the application of knowledge for innovation (fire and tools) and – we might add – the ability to make the right decisions. That is why we are here today.

What we think we know – and how to test itOver a century of research we have learnt a great deal. Yet the question of, “what determines the distribution of life on Earth” persists as biology’s Holy Grail Question. We know that energy (from solar radiation, which determines food resources) is a key factor in determining how many species and individuals can co-exist. There are almost no species in the Arctic. We also know that life is de-pendent on water. Simply visualise a hot and wet tropical rainforest with millions of species and the species-poor Tropical desert. Ten years ago, there was widespread consensus that the present-day climate (temperature and water) determined the distribution of life on Earth. Testable hypotheses were formulated that only had to be confirmed by global data.The advent of IT technology made it possible to test these hypotheses using quantitative data. In 1993, during my PhD studies in the USA, I started to compare information on the global distribution of all bird species – in electronic format. Much of the information had just been lying ‘waiting’ for decades in the collections of the world’s natural his-tory museums. Ten years later, based on 100 mil-lion data units, we were in a position to detail and analyse the global geographical variation in species diversity in terms of the number of species co-existing in a given location and zone. By merging the biological data with climate data (temperature and precipitation) from 20,000 weather stations all over the world, we were now able to test the hy-pothesis that life on Earth was determined by the present-day climate. That was the good news. The bad news was – or so many thought at the time – that the empirical data did not confirm hypoth-esised predictions. An example of the phenomenon of ’beautiful theories and ugly data’.

What we don’t know – and new discoveriesThe existing hypotheses that the present-day cli-mate alone determines life on Earth failed to ac-count for the diversity of species in mountainous regions generally, and in no way the extreme di-versity found in Tropical mountain regions. It is by no means insignificant that a presumed 90% of all species are found in those very locations. As a uni-versal explanation, the theory had now been firmly disproved. And the act of falsifying a recognised theory is regarded as a breakthrough in research. But what then determines the distribution of life on Earth – aside from energy and water?Yet another technological breakthrough brought us closer to the answer. By analysing genetic mate-rial – DNA-sequencing – we can describe species’ mutual relationships (phylogenies) and determine which species in evolutionary terms are old and which are new. Using the new technology and new data from the field, we were able to start the project of documenting evolution. With our geo-graphical data we were able to prove that relatively few places in the world have served as evolution-ary ‘speciation pumps’, from which new species were ‘produced’, and from there, spread across the world. Surprisingly, these evolutionary ‘hot spots’ would also appear to be where old species survived the global changes of previous ages – and there is even a geographical overlap with the locations where civilisations arose in the tropics. So, why did all this happen in the same place?Perhaps because these places have been climatically unchanging at local level for millennia in the pres-ence of stable resources – meaning that they were relatively unaffected by global changes. That, at least, is our theory.With our new data on the evolution and distribu-tion of species, we have demonstrated that the dis-

Global patterns of species diversity and phylogenies (family trees) for the whole world’s species of non-marine mammals (~5,000 species), amphibians (~6,000 species) and birds (~10,000 species). The colour shading on the maps goes from blue (fewest species) to green and orange to red (most species). The maps clearly demonstrate that the majority of species are found in the Tropics, and that the world’s ‘hot spots’ (the orange-red areas) for biodiversity are found primarily in tropi-cal mountain ranges. Graphics: Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, University of Copenhagen

Mammals (5,000 species) Amphibians (6,000 species) Birds (10,000 species)

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What are our origins?The supposition is that the earliest common ancestor of multicelled organ-isms was tiny – less than a millimeter, and that the morphology (physical form) of contemporary microfauna might tell us something about what our earliest ancestors looked like and how they behaved. By investigating the primary characteristics and kinships among contemporary fauna, that per-haps most closely resemble the common ancestor of all higher orders (small, but relatively complex), we will be able to test hypotheses about the most important characteristics of the ancient ancestor we all have in common. Was the last common ancestor relatively large and complex – a marine worm or snail, perhaps? Or was it microscopic, consisting of just a few cells? And that being the case, how did our diminutive common ancestor get by with such a limited number of cells? Does the human brain share its origins with these creatures? Do even microscopic organisms, consisting of only a few cells, actually have a complex, regionalised brain?

The secrets of meiofauna Some 1.3 million multicelled organisms have been described, and the esti-mated number of undescribed species ranges from 10 to 200 million. But discoveries of new, major evolutionary pathways, or phyla, in the animal kingdom are rare events. Of the 36 recognised phyla, just four were clas-sified within the last fifty years, of which the last three were described by Danish researchers. These are all aquatic and microscopic, and there is no

Photo: Mark Brandon

Figure 1. Light microscopy images of live specimens of the ‘forktail worm’ (Diurodrilus sp., photo: K. Worsaae), ‘Greenland Jaws’ (Limnognathia maerski, photo: R. M. Kristensen) and an annelid (Dinophilus taeniatus, photo: G. Rouse).

BY KATRINE WORSAAE

Katrine Worsaae (born 1972), zoologist and marine biologist, was awarded her PhD in 2004 by the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen. She has held ap-pointments at institutions such as Adelaide University, South Australia, was awarded the Danish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education’s ‘young elite researcher prize’, and since 2011 has held an associate professorship at the Marine Biological Section, Depart-ment of Biology, University of Copenhagen. Her current research addresses the evolution of meiofauna and their adaptation to extreme environments.

In 2012, the VILLUM FOUNDATION granted DKK 4,870,000 for the pro-ject “How tiny creatures answer major questions” under the foundation’s Young Investigator Programme. This project seeks to elucidate key attributes such as anatomical size, nervous system and jointing in our common ancestor based on a combination of anatomical, genetic and kinship analysis. These studies will address select microscopic, but complex, fauna groupings from the so-far under-researched evolutionary pathways in ‘Spiralia’. With new understanding of the anatomy and evolutionary pathways of these fauna in a new genealogy, we will be able to rein-terpret the origin and evolution of successful ‘body designs’ in the animal king-dom. The grant will support the project over a five-year period by funding 2 PhD students, a postdoctoral researcher and procurement of a confocal microscope and DNA sequencing technology.

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Tiny creatures reveal our origins

doubt that it is in the world of meiofauna (smaller than one mm) that the vast scale of diversity in the animal kingdom has yet to be mapped (Figure 1).

Forktail worm and Greenland JawsOur own anatomical studies have demonstrated that yet another phylum may be on the way – Di-urodrilus, a ‘forktail worm’. This unassuming, wormlike, translucent creature that leads a turbu-lent existence beneath the waves along the shore, in the gaps between grains of sand, is remarkable for its ability to spurt sticky mucous strands from its toes, Spiderman-style (Figure 2, 3). For several years we have been seeking to test genetically if Diurodrilus represents its own evolutionary path-way. Apart from its modest size of just ¼ mm, it often occurs in very limited numbers and is diffi-cult to collect in the field. In spring 2013, as a re-sult of diligent collecting, aided by many students, we finally succeeded in harvesting enough RNA from around 300 live worms to allow us to start sequencing a large proportion of the organism’s hereditary material (transcriptome).

The sequences may turn up every day, and subse-quent taxonomic studies will hopefully determine its evolutionary ranking in the animal kingdom. The same is true of the ‘Greenland Jaws’ or Lim-nognathia maerski, which, owing to its modest size and remote habitat, is equally challenging to study, and still holds many mysteries (Figure 2). We have still not traced the male of the species, and its complex mouth structure is composed of no fewer than five sets of jaws, which we now know are controlled by an even greater number of muscles (Figure 3).

Microscopy and geneticsThis summer’s harvest of specimens along the West Greenland and Danish coasts will hopefully yield more material for studying the structure and genetic expression of these microscopic creatures

to determine if they match the related phyla pro-posed for them. Although we have yet to succeed with Diurodri-lus worm, we have now established cultures for other select microscopic worm species such as Diplodasys and the ringed annelids, which will yield greater experimental scope. Aside from taxo-nomic analysis and gene expression studies based on new transcriptome data, the project comprises computer-based 3D reconstructions of the select-ed faunal organ systems and anatomies based on advanced microscopy. Microscopy is currently enjoying a renaissance thanks to new techniques, combined laser, scan-ning and nanotechnologies (e.g. FIB SEM) using genetic and molecular staining. This will allow us to study select specimens in unprecedented detail and, for example, build a full reconstruction of

the organism’s brain, complete with all its cells and interconnections.

A new genealogy for the animal kingdom – new evolutionary answersBy including these under-researched microscop-ic key fauna groups in a large-scale genealogical analysis of the animal kingdom’s 36 main group-ings (phyla) based on transcriptomic and genomic data, we will be able to construct a new and more complete ‘family tree’ and prove or disprove that the ‘forktail worm’ actually represents a new phy-lum. With the aid of this family tree, and new knowledge of the appearance and genetic expres-sion of these creatures, the tree will allow us to trace the origin and evolution of fundamental an-atomical designs and organ systems such as size, muscle and nervous system. Our hope is that this history of evolution and the functional significance of the investigated organ systems in microscopic evolutionary pathways will serve to answer some of the many riddles sur-rounding the evolution of the animal kingdom.

Figure 3: Musculature and jaw apparatus of the jaw animal from Greenland (Limnognathia maerski, Kristensen & Funch, 2000). A: Confocal laser scanning microscopy of phalloidin stained muscles, for clarity only upper part of muscle complex in the head is shown. B: Enlightenment of the different upper muscles in color. In grey, the phalloidin stained muscula-ture from image A. C: Schematic drawing of jaw elements in greys and the associated upper muscles in color. Abbrevi-ations: afm, anterior fibularium/main-jaws muscle; djm, dorsal jaws muscle; lm, lamella pharyngea muscle; vjm, ventral-jaws muscle. Unpublished from Worsaae and Bekkouche et al

Figure 2. 3D anatomical reconstruction of the mysterious Diurodrilus – a candidate for a new microscopic phylum (Worsaae & Rouse 2008) – nervous system (dark blue), cilia (red), glands (yellow), gut (pale blue), muscular pharyngal apparatus (green). Graphics: Agnar Lisberg Ferchland

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In 2012, the VILLUM FOUNDATION granted DKK 6,335,000 for the research project “Prevention and control of mould growth in buildings”. The project is a collab-oration between DTU Systems Biology (Fun-gal Physiology and Biotechnology) and DTU Civil Engineering (International Centre for Indoor Environment and Energy and Sec-tion for Building Physics and Services). The goal is, through interdisciplinary research, to study factors relating to the growth physi-ology of fungi, their production of micro-particles and mycotoxins, when they grow on building materials. The natural niches of the fungi will be explored and their contamina-tion routes from nature to buildings will be surveyed. The project will unite biological knowledge of the different species of indoor fungi with cutting edge knowledge of materi-al science, moisture transport and ventilation.

The fungal world“No water no growth” is the mantra when build-ings have to be kept free from fungal growth, but it is not always possible to exclude or remove water, as the last few years with cloudbursts and heavy snowfall have shown. The weather is not the only reason. Accidents, like a burst water pipe, or a combination of unfortunate circum-stances, such as lack of insulation, high humid-ity and inadequate ventilation, can also result in fungal growth. The problems are not restricted to any particular building type, but can be seen in buildings both old and new, high and low rise, residential, com-mercial and public. Fungal growth, commonly called mould, does not only disfigure the building and its interior, but can also have adverse health effects. Perfectly healthy people can get headaches, itchy eyes or a runny nose when they live or work in mouldy

An unventilated roof construction infected by the fungus Cladosporium sphaerospermum. Photo: Birgitte Andersen

Better buildingsand indoor climate without mould

Birgitte Andersen (born 1962) holds an MSc (1990) and a PhD (1995) from the Department of Biotechnology, Technical University of Denmark (DTU). After her PhD she was appointed to a postdoctoral position at the United States Department of Agriculture, Tree Fruit Research Laboratory, in Wenatchee, Washington. In 1997, she returned to DTU, where she is cur-rently associate professor in the Department of Systems Biology. Her research addresses the biodiversity of filamentous fungi in buildings, their growth and production of bioactive metabolites and particles.

BY BIRGITTE ANDERSEN

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buildings, whilst sensitive people can devel-op rashes or nosebleeds, after even a short stay. Asthmatics and allergy-sufferers often experience an exacerbation of their condi-tion. Common to all are that the symptoms

usually disappear after leaving the mouldy en-vironment, but reappear – often with increased

intensity – when they return.

The vulnerability of building materialsFungal growth is very difficult to get at after it has

first established itself in a building material. Mycelium and hyphae are so thin that they can grow through wall-paper and cardboard and settle in pores and cracks in plaster, woodwork and concrete. Here they will grow as long as the humidity and temperature in this micro-environment permit. When the humidity or temperature decrease, the fungi can go into suspended animation – lasting months or years – until humidity/temperature rise again and they can resume their growth. Some materials (e.g. woodchip wallpaper, plywood and gypsum board) are very vulner-able to fungal growth because they are nutrient-rich (to the fungi) and retain moisture well. One aim of the pro-ject is to examine fungal growth under different physi-ological conditions in the micro-environment of the building material: how deep into the material hyphae are able to penetrate and how to control or inactivate their further growth and sporulation. Another is to analyse which components/nutrients in the materials the fungi exploit and how these compo-nents can be made unavailable. With this knowledge one can control the growth and at the same time make the building materials more robust.

The indoor environmentDuring their growth in humid buildings, some fungi pro-duce millions of spores, whilst other fungi form mostly mycelium. However, most fungi produce volatile com-pounds, which sometimes make the building smell of “dank basement”. In pace with the drying out of a mouldy building, the fun-gi release bits of old, dead mycelium (micro-particles) that may be coated with mycotoxins and other biologically ac-tive compounds. One of the hypotheses of this project is that these micro-particles and volatile compounds are just as aggravating to human health as the spores, but since these particles are not living and the compounds are so low in concentration, the hypothesis is difficult to test. By developing collection and analysis methods to detect the micro-particles, mycotoxins and volatile compounds, the project may come a step closer to solving the question of which fungus releases what into the indoor environment.

The natural home of indoor fungiAnother and very interesting question is where the fungi that infect our buildings originate. A survey on fungal growth in water-damaged buildings, conducted in a pre-vious project granted by the VILLUM FOUNDATION, showed that 50 fungal species are common, and, of these, 7 species are responsible for 70% of all fungal growth indoors. Solid chemical and genetic data are available for these 7 species, but knowledge of their biology and ecology is lacking. It is not known, for instance, how they enter a building or what constitutes their natural habitats. By using new detection methods, this project will track the spores of individual fungal species from the building and building materials back to their natural environments. When the dispersion routes for a particular fungal species are known, the infection point of a material or building can be determined and this gives us an opportunity to control the fungus or even prevent it from gaining a foot-hold in the first place.

Spores of Ulocladium chartarum produce germination hyphae after 4 hours in a hu-mid environment. Photo: Birgitte Andersen

High humidity in a basement after flood-ing has stimulated growth of Chaetomium globosum in a photo album. Photo: Birgitte Andersen

An air sample (DG18 medium) shows the diversity in Cladosporium species in outdoor air, where the concentration is at its highest. Photo: Bir-gitte Andersen

3-point inoculation of the fungus Stachybotrys chlorohalonata on the PDA growth medium. Photo: Birgitte Andersen

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Per Halkjær Nielsen (born 1954), PhD, is Professor of En-vironmental Micro-

biology at the Department of Biotechnology, Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Aalborg University.

Lene Lange (born 1948), DSc, is Di-rector of Research and Professor of Bio-

technology at the Department of Biotechnology, Chemistry and Environmental Engine-ering, Aalborg University

In 2012, the VILLUM FOUNDATION awarded DKK 6,875,000 to the project “Investigation of new microorganisms and enzymes in biogas plants”. The aim of the project is to identify and characterise important, so-far unidentified bacteria involved in methane produc-tion in biogas reactors. A second aim is to discover new enzymes from the microbial communities in biogas reactors that can be used in the biotechnology industry. The project will be conducted over the pe-riod 2013-2016 at the Department of Biotechnology, Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Section of Biotechnology at University Campus Aalborg, and the Section of Sustainable Biotechnology at Aalborg University’s Copenhagen campus. The project team includes associate professors Peter Kamp Busk, Jeppe Lund Nielsen and Kåre Lehmann Nielsen, postdoctoral researcher Simon McIlroy and PhD student Rasmus Kirkegaard.

Biological productionIn the biorefineries of tomorrow, the aim is to get microorganisms to break waste and complex biomass (organic matter) down into bioener-gy, biochemicals and bioplastics, which in the future will serve to replace

New microorganisms and enzymes in biogas plants

Figure 1. In the future, biogas plants will be a significant source of bioenergy. The waste and complex biomass are converted into meth-ane with the aid of microbial consortia. Photo: Colourbox.com

petroleum-based products.The key to achieving this lies in the use of micro-bial communities (consortia). In this process, dif-ferent anaerobic microorganisms produce biogas in a number of stages from the complex raw ma-terial. This is the opposite of traditional biologi-cal production of specific products (e.g. insulin or enzymes) in the biotech industry. Here, the products are created by individual, highly special-ised production strains, based on simple substrates. A better understanding of microbial consortia is therefore a natural precondition for development of future biological production in biorefineries.In this project, we will be identifying and char-acterising entirely new microorganisms and mi-crobial products from biogas consortia. We will be applying these new discoveries surrounding the function of microbial consortia to establish a new basis for how to achieve even more effective

microbial conversion of biomass and waste at bio-refineries. This will result in increased resource-efficiency and enhanced sustainability.

Biogas produced by microbial consortiaBiogas (methane) is a key element in future bioen-ergy production, and can be produced by special bacteria from acetic acid or hydrogen and CO2. Therefore, for the methane to be produced, the substrate (e.g. biomass or waste) first has to be converted into acetic acid and hydrogen. This con-version takes place – just like in a food chain – via different strains of bacteria in microbial consortia. Some types of bacteria break down (hydrolyse) proteins, fats and sugars into constituent products, while other groups ferment these to produce ace-tic acid and hydrogen, and in the final stage, the methane-producing bacteria produce methane. If one of the stages in this process fails in any way,

BY PER HALKJÆR NIELSEN AND LENE LANGE

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the process, and hence production of the methane comes to a standstill. A good understanding of these microbial con-

sortia and their activity is therefore a precondition for science-based development, control and optimisa-

tion of biogas plants. The microbial consortia are also an important source of new enzymes and other bioproducts that can be used elsewhere in the biotechnology industry.

Unidentified bacteria are key playersAs is generally the case in nature, only a very few

of the bacterial strains in biogas plants can be iso-lated and cultured using existing methods. This

means that we cannot study them in the laboratory, but have to use so-called culture-independent methods

to identify and characterise them. We currently know many of the bacteria that produce methane, but our knowledge about

the other groups is still very limited. We have previously investigated trace DNA at twenty biogas plants in Den-mark and Australia, and found many wholly or partially unidentified strains of bacteria. Some of these were present in large volumes (up to 15% in some biogas plants) and must therefore be key to the processes, but by so far unidentified mechanisms. An example of this type of unidentified strain is seen in Figure 3.

Bacterial genomes The genome of a bacterium, that is, the entirety of its genetic information, typically consists of 4-5,000 genes (whereas humans have around 25,000). The genome contains information about everything the bacterium is poten-tially capable of. The problem is, however: how to harvest genomes from the individual strains when they cannot be cultured in isolation? DNA can be harvested from entire bacterial communities in a single pro-cess, and their composition determined (metagenome) using the new next generation DNA sequencing technologies. By means of metagenomics and new bioinformatics tools, it is then possible to recover genomes from many of the most significant strains in different biogas reactors.Once the genomes are in place, they can be used in creating metabolic models for the individual strains (Figure 2). In the next step, they can then

Figure 2. Overview of the pro-ject’s phases and anticipated positive outcomes. Graphics: The authors

be evaluated directly in the biogas reactor by means of studies of expressed genes (transcriptomics), and with the aid of various single cell techniques and isotope-based process studies. We expect this to give us an understanding of the life processes of the unidentified bacteria, knowledge of how they form part of the food chain in methane formation and the potentials for optimising biogas pro-duction.

New enzymes from microbial consortiaTraditionally, new enzymes are discovered by testing selected sin-gle organisms to determine their enzymatic activity or by searching in genomic databases for gene sequences akin to known enzymes. However, by this approach we are only able to discover enzymes with known activity or great similarity with known genes. By using the new tools, we are now also able to include those microorgan-isms that cannot be cultured, and which may be unknown – and in this way increase the chances of discovering entirely new enzymes. Once the metagenome from a microbial consortium has been se-quenced, it is then possible to look for new, promising genes from all the microorganisms present. However, since the volume of data involved is virtually unmanageable, another option is to concentrate exclusively on the expressed genes. A specific interest can then be further delineated and defined using Peptide Pattern Recognition (PPR), our new bioinformatics tool. This allows us to identify all the proteins that have the specific functions we are looking for (Figure 4).In this project, the aim is to maximise efforts in order to arrive at both a scientifically conceptual understanding of biomass conversion in nature, and a proven basis for discovering new enzymes, where the prospects for applied potential are optimised to best advantage.

Figure 4. Subfamilies of proteins with the same function can be separat-ed via Peptide Pattern Recognition based on differences in their amino acid sequencing pattern. In this way, PPR provides enhanced prediction of the protein’s function based solely on sequence. Graphics: The authors

Screening for Microorganisms in Biogas Plants

Newmetabolic

models

Improved biogas production from biogas plants

Knowledge on the biology and lifestyle of new bacteria

Increased knowledgeabout our ecosystem

Enzymeexpression

Evaluationof metabolic

models

Newenzymes forthe biotech

industry

Processoptimization

Identificationof new

enzymes

Visualizationof new micro-

organisms

The metagenome and genomes of new micro

organisms

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Figure 3. A fluorescent marker (gene probe) lights up an unidentified bacterial strain in a slur-ry sample from a Danish biogas plant. The bacte-ria are very small (less than 0.5 µm in diameter), and in this plant make up 10-15% of the biomass. We know that it belongs to a so-far undescribed phylum known as OP8, but know nothing about its life processes and function in biogas reactors. Photo: Simon McIlroy

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Among the more interesting literary products of medieval Iceland is the group of sagas com-monly referred to as Fornaldarsögur Norður-landa, an Icelandic term meaning ‘ancient sagas of the northern lands’. The term was first used, it seems, by the Danish scholar C. C. Rafn as the title of his three-volume edition of these sagas, published in 1829-30, which brought together all the prose narratives preserved in Old Icelan-dic dealing with the kings and heroes of early Scandinavia, before the unification of Norway under Harald Fairhair and the settlement of Ice-land in the late 9th century. They thus distinguish themselves from, on the one hand, the Icelandic ‘family sagas’ and sagas of Norwegian kings, which are considered more historically reliable, and, on the other, the trans-lations, adaptations and imitations of chivalric romance, which are set in a continental courtly milieu.

A popular genreThe 35 or so sagas which are normally regarded as constituting the genre are not all of a piece, however, and it has been argued that apart from their temporal and geographical setting they have little in common. If taken as a corpus, however, they do exhibit certain common features: they tend to be formulaic, making use of stock char-acters and motifs; they are episodic in structure and contain a strong element of the fabulous; they are prosimetric, often incorporating verses into the narrative, and they are relatively short, the longest being only about 30,000 words and the shortest scarcely 6-7,000.Although first written down in the 14th and 15th centuries, they characteristically also have at least some basis in significantly older (oral) tradition, and it has been customary to distin-guish between them internally on the basis of their relationship to that tradition. While works

BY MATTHEW JAMES DRISCOLL

Matthew James Driscoll (born 1954) is lecturer in Old Norse phi-lology at the Arnamagnæan Institute, a section of Nordisk Forsk-ningsinstitut, a research institute within the Faculty of Humani-ties at the University of Copenhagen. He holds a Cand.mag. degree from the University of Iceland and a DPhil from Oxford Univer-sity. His research interests include manuscript and textual studies, particularly in the area of Old and Early-Modern Icelandic.

In 2010, the VELUX FOUNDATION donated DKK 5,000,000 for the research project ‘Stories for all time: The Icelandic fornaldarsögur’. The project, which runs from 2011 to 2015, is based at the Department of Scandinavian Research, Copenhagen University, and involves the follow-ing researchers: senior lecturer Matthew Driscoll (principal investigator), postdoctoral fellows Silvia Hufnagel, Tereza Lansing and Jeffrey Love, PhD student Philip Lavender and research assistant Beeke Stegmann. The aim of the project is to survey the transmission history of the group of medieval Icelandic sagas known as Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda – ‘an-cient sagas of the northern lands’ – and produce new digital editions of some of the principal manuscripts in which they are preserved.

Stories for

M. J. Driscoll, the project’s principal investigator, and postdoctoral fellow Silvia Hufnagel examine Rask 32, an Icelandic manuscript from the late 18th century containing texts of a number of fornaldarsögur. Photo: Ragnheiður Mósesdóttir.

all time- ancient sagas of the northern lands

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all the extant copies, or ‘witnesses’, of the work or works to be edited. Traditionally this was done in order to iden-tify the text or texts which were as close as possible to the work’s original form. In recent years, however, there has been less focus on origins – a questionable concept any-way when dealing with material deriving at least in part from oral tradition – and more on the processes of literary production, dissemination and reception as they relate to broader historical, social and cultural practices.The aim of the research project ‘Stories for all time’ is to survey the entire transmission history of the fornal-darsögur. Over 1,700 individual fornaldarsaga texts have been identified, preserved in nearly 900 manuscripts, many previously uncatalogued, some still in private ownership.

Electronic catalogue and digital editionsThe project’s chief deliverable is an electronic catalogue of these manuscripts, containing information on their for-mat and layout, the other texts they contain, and, where known, when, where and for and by whom they were written. Ancillary to this is a fully searchable bibliography of editions, translations and secondary material. Digital editions of a number of key manuscripts containing for-naldarsaga texts are also being prepared. The texts are transcribed with as little intervention as possible, but with added layers of interpretation, such as normalisations and commentary, built in, and are linked to digital images of the original manuscripts. All of this material is prepared using XML in accordance with the standard developed and maintained by the Text Encoding Initiative Consorti-um (www.tei-c.org). Everything is available for download under a Creative Commons license and can be shared and reused as appropriate.Much of this is already in place and already much used by scholars and students (http://fasnl.ku.dk). It is hoped that when completed, the ‘Stories for all time’ digital ar-chive will prove a valuable resource for anyone interested in this remarkable literature.

such as The saga of the Völsungs are demonstrably related to and/or derived from ancient Germanic poetry, and have for this reason long been accorded a measure of scholarly respect, others, such as The saga of Egill the one-handed and Ásmundur the berserk-slayer, with their stock characters and fondness for the fantastic, have often been dismissed as his-torically unreliable fabulations of scant artistic merit. It was, in the nature of things, often precisely these sagas which proved the most popular with ordinary readers, however, as attested by the large number of manuscripts in which many of them are preserved – typically 60 or 70, spanning some five or six centuries.Their importance is many-fold. Fornaldarsaga-like narra-tives were used as a source by Saxo Grammaticus in his History of the Danes (Gesta Danorum), and the sagas them-selves were combed for information about the early his-tories of Scandinavia by 17th- and 18th-century Danish and Swedish scholars: in fact, the first saga texts ever to be printed were fornaldarsögur, 15 of which were published in Sweden in the second half of the 17th century. They have also served as a source of inspiration for national roman-tic writers such as Johannes Ewald, Adam Oehlenschläger and Esaias Tegnér. Wagner drew heavily on The saga of the Völsungs for his Ring des Nibelungen, and their influence on J. R. R. Tolkien’s works, and hence on modern fantasy in general, is also considerable.

Reliable editionsUnfortunately, study of the fornaldarsögur has long been hampered by a lack of reliable editions. Rafn’s edition, although reasonably good for its time, had a number of shortcomings, foremost among them that it made use of only a relatively small number of manuscripts, essentially only those found in Danish repositories at the time. Al-though a handful of fornaldarsögur have subsequently appeared in scholarly editions, the majority are still only available in texts which derive from Rafn.Any editorial project must begin with an examination of

XML markup of Hrólfs saga kraka.

Electronic text of Hrólfs saga kraka with facing image, from the project webpage (http://fasnl.ku.dk).

Copenhagen, Arnamagnæan Collection, Rask 32, f. 8v, showing the end of The saga of Hálfdan Eysteinsson and the beginning of The saga of Sörli the strong. Photo: Suzanne Reitz.

Carl Christian Rafn (1795-1864), first editor of the Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda. En-graving by Magnus Petersen.

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Different research traditionsSøren Mørch is a historian – now retired after a lifetime at the University of Southern Denmark. Since the mid-1960s, he has published large works, on ‘25 Prime Ministers’ and ‘61 Stories about How the World became Modern’ and lately on former Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmus-sen. A significant proportion of his books are sin-gle works. Søren Mørch writes by and large for the educated and socially-minded Dane – thus, he writes in Danish. Troels Petersen is also a researcher, but not much of what he does is done alone. He is part of a group of 40 colleagues at the Niels Bohr Insti-tute, who, again, make up a small proportion of the thousands of researchers working on particle physics at CERN, the international research cen-tre in Geneva. Troels Petersen only writes Eng-lish-language articles and always with many co-

authors, often 15-20 persons. Søren Mørch and Troels Petersen belong to two different generations, but also completely differ-ent research traditions: The humanist who inter-prets and seeks to understand, and the natural scientist who measures and weighs and seeks to explain. The humanist who is measured by the value of his writings (as judged by his peers, but often also by the public), and the natural scientist who is measured by whether his results are cited by other researchers.

MetrificationThese research traditions, and those of medicine, social sciences and technical sciences, have led a life of their own for decades at the universities without outside interference. But now the universities, like many other parts of the public sector, have been af-fected by something many of them consider alien:

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BY POUL ERIK MOURITZEN

Poul Erik Mouritzen (born 1952), Dr, MSc Political Science, is professor of public administration at the Depart-ment of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark. He heads the project on “Governance, Funding and Performance of Universities” and is a member of the “Expert Committee” advising the Danish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education on the bibliometric research indicator.

In 2011, the VELUX FOUNDATION grant-ed DKK 4,974,572 for the cross-disciplinary project “Governance, Funding and Perfor-mance of Universities”, undertaken jointly by researchers from CBS, Aarhus University and University of Southern Denmark. The aim of the project is to study how modern manage-ment styles are becoming popular at universi-ties and what consequences they might have for research. One of the sub-projects studies the consequences of the bibliometric research

indicator, a system that counts all publications from Danish university researchers and ranks them. The aim of the sub-project is to study whether this causes an increase in research publications, where this increase happens and whether any unintended consequences arise. However, the final conclusions cannot be drawn until the research indicator is some years older and the research group has carried out a so-called ‘post measurement’.

Natural and technical science. Photo: CERN

Metrificationof Sciences

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their researchers are to be managed and measured and rewarded according to performance. This is what science calls metrification. A broad majority of the Danish Parliament im-plemented a system in which all scientific publica-tions in Denmark are counted annually. Points are awarded for each publication according to objec-tive criteria, the points are added up and together with a number of other criteria sent through a calculator. The end result is an annual grant for each university, which thus reflects, among other things, how much each researcher writes.The system was implemented at very different paces at the different universities and depart-ments. Some use publication points when allo-cating one-off bonuses, others have rules on how many points have to be ‘produced’ annually as a minimum, and finally, there are those where the

researchers barely know that the system exists. There are large differences between the main areas. Within the so-called ‘wet’ areas, natural, medical and technical sciences, it’s business as usual, they do not pay much attention to the new system as they have their own indicators on how often they are quoted. The ‘dry’ areas, humanities and social sciences, have not had the same tradi-tion of measuring research publications. Within these areas, many consider the new system alien but have, nevertheless, implemented it to a much higher degree.

Different consequencesAll research suggests that when you begin to count and reward certain elements, you will re-ceive more of those. However, the research also suggests that negative consequences may arise

Humanities Social science Medicine

when you implement count-and-reward systems in areas where humans carry out an activity, as the activity itself carries a reward. In this connection, the idea is that humans can be internally motivat-ed. The internal motivation may break if a count-ing regime is perceived to be a management tool used to control the individual. Such perceptions thrive particularly within the ‘dry’ areas, especially within the humanities. The group that feels that the new research indica-tor will be used by management for control pur-poses consists of female, humanities researchers who find it important to publish in Danish, who usually work alone, who find the psychosocial en-vironment distressing, who spend a considerable amount of time on teaching, and who are unsure whether they will advance in their career. For this group it is very easy to imagine that the biblio-

metric research indicator will have more negative than positive effects. On the other hand, there is a group of researchers who expect the indicator will be used by manage-ment to develop the employees. This perception thrives particularly with male professors within medicine who are used to being measured and rewarded, who spend much time on research and usually work together with and publish in English with colleagues.If these results are combined with the theory about internal motivation, you should, thus, expect to find most negative effects of the bibliometric indi-cator among female humanities researchers. In 2014, another series of interviews and surveys will be carried out. These will allow us to draw some final conclusions about the consequences of measuring researchers’ publications.

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In 2012, the VELUX FOUNDATION granted DKK 2,200,000 for the research project “Im-migrants and old age – a study of elderly Turks in Denmark”. The project is being carried out between 2013 and 2015, and is a collaboration between SFI – the Danish National Centre for Social Research and the University of Copenha-gen. Also participating in the project is Senior Researcher and Economist Vibeke Jakobsen, SFI, and Gretty Mirdal, Professor of Psychol-ogy at the University of Copenhagen. Herself of Turkish descent, Gretty Mirdal has worked with Turkish immigrants in Denmark for sev-eral decades. Fatma Kücükyildiz, University of Copenhagen, is the interviewer. The project will increase our understanding of how immigrants experience old age, and thus how the needs of this growing group can best be met.

In around 1970, Denmark underwent expansive economic growth, which led to a lack of unskilled labour. Men from Turkey, among other countries, came to Denmark during these years and many of them still live here today. One of these men was Ali, who was hired to work at a factory. His wife Gül and their two children stayed behind in the vil-lage in Turkey where they lived with Ali’s parents. The plan was for Ali to return a couple of years later with money in his pockets. However, this was not how things turned out – instead Gül and the children came to Denmark. As the years passed, two more kids were born and suddenly Ali’s and Gül’s four children had grown up and left home.

Growing old in another countryOver the years, Ali and Gül always expected to re-turn to Turkey when they grew old. They missed the climate and the call of the imam from the mina-

ret – but at the same time, they now had children and grandchildren in Denmark. Today they have both recently turned 70 and have realised that they will probably never fully return to Turkey. Most years they spend a long summer holiday there, but their primary life is lived in an apartment on the outskirts of Copenhagen. And they have done well. All four children have now started their own family and most of them live nearby. The children often visit and help their par-ents with some of the tasks, they have problems handling themselves. Ali and Gül do not know how to use the internet bank because neither of them read Danish very well. In fact, Gül never went to school and as she has mostly had clean-ing jobs, she never really learned to speak Danish either – “and what I knew back then, I forget now that I’ve grown old” as she puts it. They do not receive any help from the Danish authorities – they like to deal with things themselves and are doing so quite well, now that the diabetes and the blood pressure are under control. But what about the future – when their health fails with advancing age, and when one of them passes away? This is not a nice thought. On the one hand, both Ali and Gül think that the best thing then would be to move in with one of their grown-up children. Preferably a son and a nice daughter-in-law – this would be like the time when Gül lived with her parents-in-law in the village, many years ago. But life is so different in Denmark: Everyone works hard and you do not want to be a burden. But moving into an old people’s home is not a nice thought either – to live in a place where they do not speak your language and where, as Gül puts it, they may serve you pork without you knowing it. The best thing would be if you could keep your good health and be able to take care of yourself –

Anika Liversage (born 1966) is a senior researcher and Program Director at SFI – The Danish National Centre for Social Research. She has studied the lives of Turkish immigrants in Denmark for several years, focusing on processes of mar-riage and divorce, and on relations between the genders and between generations.

growing oldin Denmark

Immigrants

BY ANIKA LIVERSAGE

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until one day, you pass away quickly. But of course this is not something you can decide for yourself.

A multi-method projectAli and Gül, their lives today, and their thoughts about the future, are part of a new research project on elderly Turks in Denmark. This joint project between SFI – The Danish National Centre for Social Research and the University of Copenhagen explores living conditions, expectations and problems among the growing population of elderly Turks in Denmark. These insights will be applicable to other ethnic minority groups in Den-mark as well. This will also be valuable in an international context, since Turkish immigrants are the largest group of immigrants in Europe today. Since this immigration started almost simultaneously in different Euro-pean countries, these immigrants entering old age is a new, concurrent phenomenon in many countries.The project combines four different methods. The first consists of inter-views, as for instance with Ali and Gül – people aged 70-72, and born in Turkey. These interviews take place in the homes of the persons inter-viewed. Since most interviewees only speak limited Danish, the interviews are conducted in either Turkish or Kurdish. The second method is analyses of Danish register data. Based on the Dan-ish national ID system it is possible to map this group in detail: How many individuals are there? Where do they live? How many of them live alone and how many live, for instance, together with their grown up children? In this part we focus especially on their financial situation. The elderly often do not have much money, as they rarely have an old age saving of their own and often have not gained entitlement to the full old age pension from the state, since this requires that the person has worked in Denmark for at least 40 years, which is rarely the case for these immigrants, especially the women.A third method is using survey data from the Danish national database on senior citizens. This database allows us to compare the living conditions of the Turkish immigrants with those of elderly Danes who have also been em-ployed as unskilled workers. In this way we can shed light on differences in family practices, for instance whether Turkish families have stronger family relations that can be valuable for the elderly persons studied.

Interviews over three decadesLast, but not least, the project draws on a unique qualitative material con-

sisting of interviews with Turkish immi-grant women. These interviews (also con-ducted in either Turkish or Kurdish) have been conducted over a period of 30 years: The same women were interviewed in around 1980, in 2000 and again in 2010 – when most of them were in their sixties. Furthermore, in around 2010 some of the daughters of these first generation women were also interviewed and the material thus provides insights into the life one of a single family, not only over time, but also from two different per-spectives. This material also allows us to explore how these women expected their lives in old age to be, when they were in the middle of their lives and growing old was still the distant future – and how life has subsequently turned out, now that the years have passed and the once so distant future has become the present.The research project, to be conducted in the period 2013-2015, will give a voice to some of the elderly people in Denmark that are rarely heard. Thus, it will pro-vide valuable input for the Danish public sector, in which a growing population of senior citizens from non-Western coun-tries are about to pose new and different challenges. Several of these elderly Turks mention the possibility of establishing old people’s homes especially for Mus-lims. If both employees and elderly resi-dents come from a background similar to your own, you can talk to them. Then you will not end up lonely and helpless, as many of the elderly Turks today fear becoming.

These years an increasing number of Turkish immigrants reach the age of retirement. Photo: The project

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ratus and method. The method is already being applied in investigation of a number of diseases of the retina and optic nerve to determine the clinical significance of the findings. The pro-ject has led to collaboration with other Copen-hagen-based teams researching related areas.

The eye is the body’s light-sensitive sensory or-gan. In general terms, the structure of the eye is the same as that of a camera (fig. 1). When light strikes the rod and cone cells of the retina, a series of chemical reactions occur. The chemical that is formed creates electrical impulses which are then transmitted via series-and parallel-connected cells to the optic nerve cells (ganglion cells, fig. 2), and from there via relay stations to the visual brain where imaging takes place.

The pupillary light reflexExposure of the eye to light has other effects. It is well known that light causes the pupil to con-tract due to what is known as the pupillary light reflex. The nerve pathways leading the signals to the light reflection are shown in (fig. 3). The sig-nal is sent via the light sensitive ganglion cells to the pupillary centre of the brain. The nerve path-ways intersect so that light directed at just one eye results in activation of the light reflection in the other eye as well. Only a small proportion of the ganglion cells (0.5%) are involved in the signalling process. Re-search within the last decade has demonstrated that the optic nerve ganglion cells which trans-mit impulses to the pupillary centre and sleep and circadian rhythm centres possess a very special

BY HENRIK LUND-ANDERSEN

Henrik Lund-Andersen (born 1945), professor in ophthalmology at University of Copenhagen and director of Capital Region of Denmark’s Copenhagen Opht-halmology Centre, based at Glostrup Ho-

spital. He wrote his doctoral thesis on glucose trans-port across the blood-brain barrier. He went on to specialise in ophthalmology and at that time also established a research laboratory which applied basic physiological methods to clinical ophthalmological re-search at the Unit for Ocular Physiology, established in 2001 with a grant from the VELUX FOUNDA-TION. His research has focused on diseases of the re-tina, notably as a complication of diabetes, and most recently on the relationship between retinal disease and the optic nerve, especially the role of photosensi-tive ganglion cells. He has published more than 200 articles in international journals.

In 2012, the VELUX FOUNDATION granted DKK 4,715,000 for the project “Det blå lys – et vindue til regulering af vores døgnrytme” (The blue light – a window into regulation of our circadian rhythm). The optic nerve cells (gan-glion cells) include a small number of cells that are sensitive to blue light (not rods and cones). These cells are associated with sleep and circa-dian rhythm centres in the brain and also with the mechanism responsible for contraction and dilation of the pupil of the eye. The aim of the project is to develop a clinical method for de-termining the function of these cells in humans based on the pupillary reaction to blue light, and, for comparison, red light. An apparatus set up under the project permits simultaneous illumination of the eye and video recording of pupillary movement, and measurements have been obtained for a large group of healthy re-search subjects in order to standardise the appa-

Fig 1. Eye and camera. It appears that the general con-struction is the same. In front optics, which focus the light on the film/chip or the retina. Graphics: American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO)

- a window into brain function

eyeThe

Fig 2. Cross section of the retina. The white arrow indi-cates the direction of the light, while the red arrows in-dicate the direction of the signal transduction from the retina through the optic nerve. Graphics: The author

1) GANGLION CELLS. 2) BIPOLAR CELLS. 3) PHOTORECEPTORS. 4) RETINAL PIGMENT EPITHELIUM. 5) OPTIC NERVE FIBER.

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property: they are sensitised to blue light, in a completely different way to rods and cones.It has been demonstrated that not only are these ganglion cells connected to the pupillary centre of the brain, but also to those centres that control circadian rhythm and sleep. By studying the pupillary reflex it is possible to investigate the function of the photosensitive ganglion cells and their role in regulating sleep and the circadian rhythm.

New apparatusMost of our knowledge so far, however, comes from animal studies. The aim of the current project funded by the VELUX FOUNDATION, is to develop a clinical method to evaluate the function of the photosensitive ganglion cells in humans by performing precise measurements of the pu-pillary reflex response to illumination with blue and red light. Because the photosensitive ganglion cells are not sensitive to red light, red light is used as a control mechanism to distinguish the signal emanating from the photo-sensitive ganglion cells from the signal emanating from the rods and cones.In the absence of commercially available apparatus for this purpose, the pro-ject started out by constructing a device capable of illuminating the eye with monochromatic blue or red light while infra-red video recording pupillary movement in the second grey eye. This initial project also included a num-ber of photometric studies to determine the optimum light intensity and duration of exposure required.

Findings and new questionsThe pupillary reflex triggered by red light was found to decrease rapidly as soon as illumination of the eye was withdrawn, while the pupillary reflex triggered by blue light, was sustained for a minute after the light was turned off. This serves to demonstrate the activity of the photosensitive ganglion cells and their sensitivity to blue light.After successful development of the apparatus and testing method for healthy subjects, the research focused on these questions:

1. Do light-sensitive cells change as we age? The answer was yes: light-dependent activity in cells increases with advancing age. We do not yet un-derstand the implications of this for sleep and circadian rhythms, and have not established what happens if this phenomenon does not occur. Prospec-tive studies should clarify these aspects.

Fig 4 shows how the papillary reflex develops before, during and after illumination of an eye for 20 sec., followed by darkness. The pupil is before illumination large, 100%. Thereafter the pupil contracts (descending part of the curve) and remains contracted during illumination (center part of the figure). After stop of the illumination the pupil dilates again. It is the slow dilation phase which represents the activity of the light sensitive ganglion cells. Graphics: The author

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2. Does photosensitive cell activity change in the presence of cataracts? Cataracts are known to soak up blue light. It is therefore of interest to investigate whether the development of cataracts involves a change in cell function, and how cata-ract surgery might also affect cell function. One finding so far is that as a cataract develops, cell function increases to compensate for the loss of light, but that after cataract surgery further activ-ity occurs in the cells. The clinical significance of these findings is currently under investigation.

3. Are photosensitive ganglion cells damaged by disease affecting the optic nerve? Two dif-ferent pathological conditions were investigated: glaucoma and blood clot in the optic nerve head. The studies found that blood clots in the optic nerve head upregulate cellular functions as a com-pensatory measure, whereas this is not the case in glaucoma. The influence of these phenomena

onsleep and circadian rhythms remains to be in-vestigated.

Today, medicine is only just embarking on the comprehensive research that will advance our knowledge of the interactions between eye diseases and sleep and circadian rhythm regulation. Since sleep and circadian rhythm regulation plays a fun-damental role in a number of biological processes in the body, the ultimate finding may be that the eye diseases that interfere with the function of pho-tosensitive ganglion cells affect not only the brain’s basic functions, but also the rest of the body’s homeostasis and regeneration pattern. Future re-search will seek to confirm this hypothesis.Using the pupillary research method developed under the present project, the hope is that it will be possible to identify which diseases of the eye and which individuals we need to pay particular attention to and focus on.

Fig 3. Schematic illustration of the papillary reflex (the non percepted light). Light on the eye to the right results in impulses through the optic nerve to the papillary motor centre, where the axons are crossing and innervate both eyes, which react identically. Graphics: The author

BRAINSTEM

PUPILLARY CENTER

OPTICNERVE

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BY RASMUS VEJ

The new IT learning laboratory, with all the new com-puters installed and connected. Photo: Rasmus Vej

The new IT learning laboratory, where all the new com-puters are being upgraded. Photo: Rasmus Vej

Extra IT learning labThe pressure on the IT section – with 10 teaching stations – was mounting by 2012. Tuition was pro-vided daily from 9.30 to 16.00 – where a team of seniors volunteered their time to help more of their peers to learn basic computer skills. But even so, the waiting list was growing and was up to 130 people. Before long, everyone in Denmark will have to be able to send and receive e-mail, including people who have never used a computer before. From 2015 all citizens will be required to use a com-puter and the internet and Nem-ID, the special digital identity for exchanging information with public authorities. The association is keen to fa-cilitate this major transition in society, but that required an additional IT learning laboratory. Since the association wasn’t able to raise the capital needed for IT equipment for a whole new section, it applied to the VELUX FOUNDATION again, the result of which was a second donation that made it possible to assist a large group of senior citizens to acquire the basic IT skills they need. Fortunately, however, the premises adjacent to the workshops became vacant. The tenancy was extend-

ed, and an agreement was concluded with the local authority for them to supply the necessary materials for the conversion, while the members would carry out all the practical work, just as they had done pre-viously, also for free, in all the other sections.Once again the association found that every new initiative brought renewed delight and pride among the members in being part of the organi-sation.Thanks to the extended capacity in the IT section, the association is now, starting from 1 Septem-ber, provisionally Mondays and Tuesdays offering non-member pensioners in Svendborg Municipal-ity a 2 x 3 hour course in using Nem-ID. We do however require participants to have some prior computing experience. The seniors workshops project in Svendborg has gone from strength to strength and is a source of inspiration for others. The project has already inspired three more counterpart associations at Næstved, Ringe and Ishøj. The original workshops receive regular visits from other activity centres and senior citizen councils, the members of which take home new ideas and much inspiration.

Rasmus Vej (born 1940) served with the Danish Royal Life Guards in 1959-1961. A skilled carpen-ter by trade, he was a master carpenter from 1977 until his retirement. Since 2007 he has served as chairman of Seniorværkstederne, the ‘seniors work-shops’ association.

In 2013, Seniorværkstederne received two donations from the VELUX FOUNDATION. In spring, they received DKK 170,000 for the procurement of a wood waste extraction unit to improve air quality in the joinery section, which provides the main setting for the activi-ties that attract the many senior citizens who attend Seniorværkstederne, the seniors work-shops, on a daily basis. And in the autumn they received DKK 95,125 to install IT equip-ment in an extra IT learning laboratory with 12 teaching stations set up to promote IT learning and skills among senior citizens.

Seniors workshops in Svendborg

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New conduits from the machines in the joinery section to the wood waste extraction unit. Photo: Rasmus Vej

Wood waste extraction unit for the joinery sectionSeniorværkstederne in Svendborg is an independ-ent association with its own statutes and elect-ed board. The objects of the association are to bring together pensioners and early-retirees of both sexes, aged 60+ for active socialisation; to develop, offer and engage in activities of various kinds adapted to all skill and ability levels; and to host social functions for members. The associa-tion is currently housed in the premises of former tinned-food factory.On relocating to the present address in 2004, there were 74 members. The new premises pro-

vided more space immediately, with the option of extensions later on, but also required a concerted effort on the part of the members to make the in-teriors viable as workshops. The association num-bers many retired members of skilled trades and people with a practical bent. The members them-selves refurbished the entirety of the premises in an outstanding, voluntary effort by all the men.This immense contribution in time and effort by the members also had the effect of creating a strong sense of community and encouraged social interaction. The conversion process has been on-going and highly productive.

Several extensions have been made so far, so that the association currently has around 950 m2 at its disposal for a great range of activities.Membership count at the turn of the year 2012/2013 was 456 persons aged 60+, with an equal distribution of women and men. However, the target group is still men. This is because men typically find it difficult on retirement to find an alternative to working life. Activities at the seniors workshops have proved an excellent alternative to the jobs that dominated life pre-retirement. This is also one of the reasons why the association holds an annual open-day event in

September – and happily always with a great turn-out. The women come all of their own accord, so no need to worry about persuading them to join.In response to the great influx of members, activi-ties in the joinery section increased to match. Un-fortunately so did the problem of dust and wood shavings. The small wood waste extractors kept next to the individual machines were unable to cope with the intensive demand that followed in the wake of the increase in membership.Thanks to the VELUX FOUNDATION’s dona-tion, the workshops now benefit from excellent air quality.

Collection-bag-emptying filter – the external compo-nent of the new wood waste extraction unit. Photo: Rasmus Vej

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Etching: Wilse’s drawing of the vicarage gardens at Spydeberg, Norway.

J. N. WilseInterest in Jacob Nicolai Wilse arose on Thyholm around twenty years ago, culminating with a play entitled “Scenes from Life” penned by local playwright, Niels Stokholm. The play portrays Wilse’s life story from his birth in Lemvig, his childhood and youth in Søndbjerg and his adult life in Norway, at first Spyde berg and then Eidsberg, where he was vicar. The play met with such an enthusiastic response from the inhabitants of our Norwegian twin-town of Spydeberg, that they invited us to Norway to stage the play in the vicarage gardens at Spydeberg. These are the gardens designed by Wilse, and which have now served as inspiration for the museum’s small-scale vicarage gardens at Søndbjerg.

A vicarage gardenBut why gardens in the style of Wilse’s age? His was the age of Enlighten-ment, in which the vicar was to encourage the peasantry to gain qualifica-tions, to be industrious and embrace new methods of cultivation and new crops, a healthy way of life and so forth. The vicar was the ‘pioneer’ of creating kitchen gardens and orchards. By his own example, the vicar shows in his gardens how local smallholders can make the most of their own land. The vicar spreads knowledge of plants with edible, medicinal or other uses among the peasants. Wilse was an eminent and typical representative of the age of Enlightenment in all its desire for knowledge and its utilitarianism.The gardens are inspired by the Baroque style favoured in Wilse’s vicarage gardens. Typical features include axes, in the form of paths, and clipped hedging plants such as yew. The broad paths were designed to make it easy for the public (including the less mobile) to explore the gardens.The planting is based on the plants Wilse would have seen growing on Thyholm in the 1700s. These included elder, hazel, blackberry, docks, Dutch clover and catnip. (Wilse gives plants such as Dutch clover the credit for the excellent cheeses made on Thyholm at the time.) These are complemented by some of the earliest cultivars such as yew, bush roses, lilac and damson. The two sweet cherries pay tribute to Wilse’s vicarage gardens in Spydeberg, Norway.One little-known fact of note is that the vicarage at Spydeberg was the setting for the preliminary negotiations preceding the adoption of the Constitution of Norway in 1814!

BY HERMAN RØMER

Herman Rømer (born 1943) trained as a teacher at Silke-borg Teacher Training College and in 1966 took up a position at Hvidbjerg Centralskole on the North Jutland peninsula of Thyholm, where he taught until his retirement in 2003. Herman Rømer has been actively involved in many projects and associations on Thyholm. He has served Thyholm Egnsmuseum, an independent regi-onal museum, since 2008 as chairman of the board.

In 2013, the VELUX FOUNDATION donated DKK 100,000 to the regional museum, Thy-holm Egnsmuseum, for its “Wilse Gardens” pro-ject. The museum had long aspired to create a park, a recreational space, in the 1000-year-old village of Søndbjerg, where Jacob Nicolai Wilse (1763-1801) was raised. The museum wished to pay tribute to Wilse by creating ‘vicarage gar-dens’ in the style of those created by Wilse in Sp-ydeberg, Norway, where he subsequently became a vicar and professor. But equally, the aim is for the gardens to serve as an information space ded-icated to a man of the Enlightenment, for whom it was imperative to improve conditions for the common people.

– vicarage gardens from the Age of Enlightenment

Garden layout by garden designer Margrethe Heide, Thisted.

Wilsehaven

Jacob Nicolai Wilse (1763-1801).

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In 2006, the VELUX FOUNDATION provided a grant of DKK 250,000 that, with additional support from the Commission for Sci-entific Research in Greenland, Direktør Ib Henriksens Fond and Fri-modts Fond, enabled the two retired civil engineers, Hans P. Steen-fos and Jørgen Taagholt, in association with the Arctic Institute, to compile material for the report “Lokalisering og sikring af arkivalier vedrørende den teknologiske udvikling i Grønland” (2008) (Localisa-tion and protection of records concerning the development of technol-ogy in Greenland). Based on the information gathered and the au-thors’ personal involvement in developing Greenland over the course of more than 50 years, they have followed the Arctic Institute’s sugges-tion and prepared a manuscript for the book “Grønlands teknologi-historie” (The History of Technology in Greenland). With support from the VELUX FOUNDATION totalling DKK 270,000 in 2012 and additional support from Kgl. Grønlandsfond (the Royal Green-land Foundation) and Kulturfonden Danmark-Grønland, Gyldendal

Technology in Greenland

BY HANS P. STEENFOS AND

For many years, Hans P. Steenfos (born 1931), civil engineer, was involved in ma-jor construction projects not only in Green-land and Alaska but also in Europe, Asia and Africa while working for a company

called Bigum & Steenfos, Rådgivende Ingeniør-firma A/S. He has been a member of the Society of Danish Engineers Executive Committee and mem-ber of the Board of Directors of the Danish Associa-tion of Consulting Engineers (FRI).

Jørgen Taagholt (born 1934), civil engi-neer, has been conducting geophysical investigations in Greenland for the Tech-nical University of Denmark since 1961. From 1967 until 2001 he worked as scientific liaison officer for the ministries

and authorities on issues concerning Greenland for the Ministry for Greenland and later the Danish Polar Center. In 1972, he was appointed by the Mi-nister for Greenland as a member of the Commis-sion for Scientific Research in Greenland.

Primitive housing. Photo: Jørgen Taagholt 1962

13-storey high-rise housing built in Nuuk during Self-government. Photo: Jørgen Taagholt 2012

JØRGEN TAAGHOLT

The History of

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publishing house launched this richly illustrated 631-page book in August 2012 with Ole Jørgensen and Axel Kielland as editors and graphics by Jørgen Strunge.

The book begins with a short review of how the culture of hunting has developed over the past 1,000 years, the immigration of the Norse people adopting Scandinavian traditions and the impact of the colonial era on this development. The remainder of the book concerns the turbulent develop-ment following World War II. While covering sufficient technical subjects, this comprehensive guidebook will also appeal to anyone interested in the Arctic and Greenland. Written for pupils in the senior years of secondary school and upper secondary school, it is also sure to interest anthropologists, sociologists, geographers and social scientists wishing to follow developments in the Arctic region, as well as companies involved in Arctic technology. In the space of 34 chapters, readers gain insight into the administrative

Large apartment buildings in Nuuk. Photo: Jørgen Taagholt 2001

Road construction in Ilulissat. Photo: Hans P. Steenfos

structure of the technological development, teaching, including the en-gineering courses in Greenland, administrative and political issues as well as the geophysical aspects – climate, including permafrost, for example. The book has a special focus on the construction work, energy supply and technical hygiene, ship and air transport, communication, hunting and fishing, mining, agriculture and tourism as well as services e.g. within navi-gation, meteorology, emergency services and fisheries inspection. Finally, the book also provides insight into the rules and requirements for building and construction projects, study concessions etc. Technical developments are clearly described from a neutral perspective and presented in a relevant social context.This unique book, which is in a league of its own with many colour il-lustrations, drawings, maps and graphical summaries, explains issues in a reader-friendly journalistic style. Chapter by chapter it explores the multi-faceted history of the special Arctic conditions for the enjoyment of both professionals and readers with a general interest in this field.

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Headspace Denmark 2013Every year, many children and adolescents are affected by problems such as insecurity, low self-esteem, stress, anxiety, eating disorders, suicidal tendencies and substance abuse. From Danish studies we know that 75-80,000 young people aged 16-24 are affected by mental health issues. Among 11-15-year-olds, 50,000 have similar is-sues. The tendency is for the youngsters to isolate themselves, often without any active contact with parents or peers. And without seeking the help of a doctor or public mental health services. The barriers preventing these young people from completing an education or training and finding employment are almost insurmountable – up to 80% of the dropouts from vocational training programmes have mental health issues. The public sector alone is unable to help these young people at an early enough stage. There is a need for a whole new approach in Denmark to providing children and young people with prop-

er access to early, rapid and relevant help before they become a ‘case’ in the public-sector system. Inspired by the Australian initiative of the same name, The Social Network Association is intro-ducing headspace in six Danish municipalities: City of Copenhagen, Rødovre, Roskilde, Odense, Horsens and Aalborg for a 2½-year period with funding from the VELUX FOUNDATION.

Civil society as a bridge builderHeadspace operates independently of local, re-gional and national authorities. It is not in com-petition with public services, but is rather a com-plementary mental health service that can take ac-tion and assist at an earlier stage, while also being more fine-meshed and receptive. In headspace, the aim is to reach out to young people at risk – before they develop a mental disorder and need treatment from the public system. Each centre is built up around a large corps of volunteers and a small permanent staff. One of

BY POUL NYRUP RASMUSSEN

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (born 1943), former Prime Minister, Chairman of The Social Network Association

In 2013, the VELUX FOUNDATION, as co-funder with the VILLUM FOUN-DATION, donated DKK 21,907,500 to the ‘headspace Denmark’ project, a new core initiative under The Social Network Association (Foreningen Det Sociale Netværk). The headspace project sees the creation of a completely new form of independent initiative for the benefit of vulnerable young people, supported by an alliance of civil society and profession-als. Headspace aims to reach young peo-ple at an early stage with preventive pro-grammes to forestall public-sector social and treatment-oriented interventions.

Headspace Photo: iStock

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-new, early help for vulnerable children and young people

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involved in designing and developing the centre. The first impression signals that youngsters will be well received by people ‘on their side’.

Cooperation with the local authorityHeadspace is a pre-municipal programme, but each local centre has a natural and important joint arrangement with the local authority services, for example, in cases where the young person’s problems are so complex that the cen-tre is unable to provide comprehensive mental health care. At each centre, there will be a special focus on achieving a friction-free transition for young people from headspace to local/regional mental health care.Every one of the participating local authorities has en-dorsed the concept of giving all youngsters access to the centres, whether they live in the city or the provinces. The basis for this is a binding, written cooperation agreement which guarantees headspace and the vulnerable children and young people a single point of access to the local au-thority services if the need arises. But equally, the ambi-tion is for headspace to inspire local authorities to adopt new, better solutions in their youth mental health care. The Social Network Association has developed the Danish headspace concept over an 18-month period, the last six months of which benefitted from close dialogue with the VELUX FOUNDATION’s senior advisors up to the fi-nal funding application. This interaction has undoubtedly given credence to and helped to fine-tune the headspace project – in terms of both cooperation with the local au-thorities and civil society involvement. The headspace pilot project will be launched in 2013, and will be rolled out and in operation over the next 2½ years until autumn 2015. The project incorporates supervision and documentation with associated reporting. After the project period – with the anticipated positive outcomes – the ambition of The Social Network Association is for headspace Denmark to be endorsed and established as a full-scale nationwide project.

the volunteer teams is made up of young people with a personal history of mental vulnerability. The other team is made up of young students with an interest in engaging in the work of the centre, for example trainee social workers or psy-chology students. The third team is made up of resourceful senior citizens, whose contribution is based on their life experience and former oc-cupation. Headspace pledges to offer the same service and high-level professionalism among its volunteers and permanent, trained staff, regard-less of the centre’s geographical location. To that end, the national headspace centre is conducting a comprehensive recruitment process and induc-tion programme for managers, staff and volun-teers alike. Each centre is anchored in its local community, and operates in association with sports associa-tions, youth clubs, education and training institu-tions, etc., and in close cooperation with its local authority. In this way, it implements local capacity building for civil society, and thereby as a whole increases the prospects of bringing vulnerable

youngsters into the care of the headspace centre in time.

On their own termsThe headspace centre is geared to children and young adults aged between 12 and 25, who need counselling and help in their particular situation. No matter what problems the young people are confronted with, they can either call their local centre or walk in off the street for help. The basic premise is that the help must be avail-able on the young people’s own terms and in their own ‘scene’, not on the system’s terms. This is what makes it possible to achieve real contact and meaningful interaction at the headspace centres. The help must be available there and then – and without any provisos. Headspace will also be a help to family and friends who can seek informa-tion at the centres, and refer a young person to the centre for urgent help. The headspace centres are located where young people are used to hanging out. To ensure ‘youth appeal’, it is vital that the young volunteers are Photo: iStock

Photo: iStock

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About taking part and doing more togetherIn the future, voluntary work is set to take on greater importance, both for the sustained de-velopment of our welfare society, and to enable Denmark to continue mounting social projects with scope beyond our national borders. Hence the growing need to both encourage and unlock the full potentials of volunteerism.The TAG DEL platform was conceived to elimi-nate precisely those barriers which volunteers come up against when they sign up for voluntary work. TAG DEL tackles this problem by making voluntary work more accessible, involving and valuable. Not just for the volunteers themselves, but also for the projects, associations and insti-tutions that make use of voluntary work. More specifically, TAG DEL enables the platform’s us-ers to bring their inspiration and ideas to bear in mounting projects and initiatives that respond to the challenges faced by our society.

TAG DEL is Denmark’s platform for a new online volunteerism, serving as a valuable supplement to voluntary work as we know it, and in such a way that greater numbers of citizens are becoming even more involved in voluntary work.

TAG DEL is for everyoneTAG DEL was born out of the belief that we can create more socially innovative solutions if we en-able everyone to bring their own special skills and resources into play. This is why TAG DEL is for everyone who wants to be involved in creating so-lutions to the challenges of our society and who wants to be involved in putting those solutions to work in real life. In essence, TAG DEL is a plat-form for sharing and collaborating across associa-tions, public institutions and businesses, with citi-zens, and their interests and inputs, taking centre stage. The TAG DEL platform is free of charge for everyone to use.

BY ANNE KATRINE HEJE LARSEN AND STEFAN THOLSTRUP SCHMIDT

Anne Katrine Heje Larsen (born 1976) is co-fou-nder of KPH – Københavns Projekthus. She pre-viously started up and ran the culture and entre-preneurship fair Copenhagen Unfair during Copenhagen Fashion Week, and personally works as a designer, owning her own brand for eight years. She is now the director of KPH.

Stefan Tholstrup Schmidt (born 1980) is one of the initiators of TAG DEL and works as project ma-nager for the TAG DEL project. He has a master’s-equivalent in experience economics and gained a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Aarhus University in 2011. Stefan wrote the bachelor the-sis that formed the basis for the TAG DEL concept.

In 2012, the VELUX FOUNDATION, as co-funder with the VILLUM FOUNDATION, granted DKK 758,100 to Københavns Pro-jekthus (KPH) to realise the project ‘TAG DEL (Tagdel.dk) – hvor vi gør mere sammen’. TAG DEL (www.tagdel.dk), which translates as ‘TAKE PART’, is a social media platform which nurtures and mobilises voluntary ca-pacity in Denmark. It does so by providing a framework for a whole new style of volun-teerism. A framework which both stems from

and generates social innovation, where the focus is on shared influence and showcasing the individual volunteer’s commitment, skills and interests. KPH is a project hothouse for innovative start-ups and established entrepre-neurs, committed to developing value-creating solutions to society’s problems. The object of the association is to provide a framework, in-novative community involvement and alliances in support of social, cultural and environmen-tal entrepreneurs.

TAGDEL.dk - an online portal for volunteerism

TAG DEL’s frontpage

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lective Causes), which posted a challenge to ad-dress resource wastage on its TAG DEL profile. The challenge reads: “How can we create more scope for sharing and collective ownership?”(see the screenshots). The users start by contributing ideas for specific initiatives to realise this mission (see the screenshots of solution proposals by the responding users). As soon as the project has re-ceived enough ideas for initiatives and has selected one or more to put into practice, they can follow up the challenge by posting an event and inviting all the users to participate in realising the initiatives.

Why TAG DEL and online volunteerism?With TAG DEL, we have not only created a new portal to the world of volunteering as we know it, we have created a whole new framework for a new type of volunteerism. In that sense, ’TAG DEL’, meaning ’TAKE PART’, is not just a name, but a new take on volunteering, and a new way of relat-

ing to and talking about doing voluntary work. In TAG DEL, the aim is to make it acceptable to say out loud that as volunteers, we are not only donat-ing our labour, but benefitting personally from do-ing so. The name itself, TAG DEL/TAKE PART, conveys this positive give-take duality of encourag-ing people to participate by sharing their skills and resources, but also to take positive experiences of volunteering onboard.In the midst of hectic modern life, TAG DEL is a platform where the users can contribute whenever and wherever it suits them. With TAG DEL, users can help to solve a challenge while on the bus to school or work – meaning when they have the time and inclination. Furthermore, TAG DEL is a plat-form where all activity and commitment are visible to everyone else.In short, TAG DEL makes taking active part in solving the challenges in our society a meaningful experience all round.

The TAG DEL platform’s functions and scopeCore to the TAG DEL platform is that all its users can post a social and societal challenge and invite each other to help come up with solutions to the challenge. If a user wants to go ahead and imple-ment one or more solutions to a given challenge, that user can then invite the platform’s other users to an event where the new solution is realised. All users of the platform can post a challenge with-in the areas of arts & culture, health & wellbeing, social work, children & youth, politics, climate & environment, sport & recreation, transport, urban spaces and education.TAG DEL is designed as a highly democratic and social platform where those who use the system and each other’s services, are continually encour-aged to contribute to and react to each other’s challenges and proposed solutions. For instance, all users can ‘support’ (equivalent to ‘like’ on Fa-cebook) each other and each other’s content, they

can ‘build’ on each other’s solutions and invite each other to challenges and events where solu-tions are put to work. The aim is for the users to assume the role of in-spired co-creators of solutions to other users’ chal-lenges. This helps to instil a sense of co-ownership and commitment in each user, so everyone is mo-tivated to subsequently get involved as a ‘conven-tional’ hands-on volunteer when a new solution is ready to be implemented. Beyond that, the TAG DEL platform is designed with a view to supporting the creation of new, hands-on networks across the platform’s different users. TAG DEL achieves this by facilitating the exchange of know-how, experi-ence and inspiration among the users and a general meeting of minds in a context where the focus is rallying proactive forces to respond to challenges.

Fra udfordring til realisering af løsningOne example of a user is ’Sager der Samler’ (Col-

Screenshot of possible challenges from the association “Uniting Causes” Example of user suggestion to deal with the challenge

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In 2012, the VILLUM FOUNDATION granted EUR 621,628 to RODACIE (Roma-nian Danish Centre for Integrated Education), which was established in 2012. The project – implemented by the General Directorate for Social Assistance and Child Protection District 1 in partnership with VIA University Col-lege, Denmark, Bucharest University, Roma-nia, Training and Resource Center for Social Occupations ‘Pro Vocatie’ – aims to improve the living conditions and facilitate the social integration of young children in a Romanian context by creating a new, innovative and spe-cialised state-of-the-art institution targeting children aged 0-4 from deprived and/or so-cially dysfunctional families from inner-city Bucharest.

A day in fairytale landIt is morning at the Romanian Danish Center for Integrated Education and everybody is busy. The smiling children arrive, accompanied by their par-ents. They are happy to see the people that for the

past six months have become part of their families.At RODACIE, all the children feel safe, as safe as in their parents’ arms, even though some of them are very young and barely walking yet. This is just one result of the project’s philosophy of creat-ing a predictable and stimulating environment for child development, which – unlike traditional Romanian crèches – erases the barriers between the children and their carers. This environment, organised according to Dan-ish paedagogical principles, recreates a homely at-mosphere in every detail: a sofa, the eating area, the motor skills development area, the reading area, all of them are set at child height and are fully accessible to them.As we all know, the moment when parents leave children at a crèche may cause a feeling of sepa-ration, even of abandonment, but a friendly at-mosphere, resembling the family setting eases the transition from home to day-care. At RODACIE, play is the order of the day, and the adults are like children again. But they have not forgotten their duty to educate the little ones, the adults play

RODACIE– A Land of Play

BY IOANA PARPALA

Ioana Parpala (born 1976) holds master’s degrees in psychotherapy and project management. She has worked at the Romanian General Directorate for Social Assistance and Child Protection since 2004, as a psychologist and subsequently as a project manager. She has coordi-nated BERD, PHARE and FSE funded projects.

Exploring a new space. Photo: Maria Coza

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design early-learning activities, to implement a successful educational model adapted to Roma-nian circumstances. They adjust to the children’s needs, they change their attitude, the way they perceive the children and the way they interrelate and as a result adapt the way they work, which is one of the hallmarks of the project. Romanian and Danish trainers regularly join the RODACIE team and discuss child supervision through play; how the educator should be the child’s partner and role model in order to help him become a confident and resilient adult. The trainers help the staff discover different ways of working with the children, how to tell music from noise, discover nature and the surrounding world, as well as dance and the joy of social interaction.Designed and planned in compliance with the requirements of Romanian legislation regarding early education, the activities meet the needs of the children. Each activity, each initiative has a precise goal clearly defined by the ‘good fairies’. The center focuses on the children’s perspective:

the educators acknowledge the children’s per-spectives and make them part of everyday activi-ties, so that they are involved in drawing a path to follow under kindly adult supervision.

The fairytale lives onWe wrote the story. The VILLUM FOUNDA-TION liked it and decided to help us turn it into reality, and all we have to do now is to carry on. Our Danish friends are helping and teaching us to become better carers for our children, to create new fairytales for the children to help them un-derstand at an early age how important they are. In future, the plan is to expand RODACIE with beautiful gardens where children can ride their bikes, climb miniature mountains, and study the wonderful world of animals and plants. They will learn to be independent and at the same time to respect and play with each other. In this way, RO-DACIE makes it possible for the children to step up and go on living the beautiful story of their life.

with them: they sing, move and dance together. So, every morning gets off to a happy start. During the first meeting of the day – just like the dwarves in fairytales – the children take their cushions, sit in a circle and sing, say their names and greet their playmates. The goal of the activi-ties that follow is to familiarise the children with daily routines and encourage independence: the children wash their hands, brush their teeth, eat their meals and snacks and play together.As the saying goes – a healthy mind in a healthy body – every day the children play in the open air. The adults join in and help them explore nature. Together, they watch insects, flowers, birds. This is where the educator is no longer a supervisor: he is a teamplayer and playmate, discovering the natural world together with the children. At noon the children eat at the center. Meals re-present another important daily activity in the process of building the children’s independence, and the RODACIE team is more than an obser-ver: the staff eat together with the children, help-

ing them and setting examples for them, acting as role-models for the children.The whole learning process focuses on the chil-dren, their needs and abilities, so that the activi-ties can be conducted individually, in small groups or with all the children. It is the child’s choice to take part in a particular activity; if the child does not wish to join in, he or she can just watch the others or choose to join another activity. RODA-CIE palace is the home of fairytales. The children play, watch the others in a safe setting, adjusted to real-life situations, and in this way discover them-selves, other people and the world around them. The educator and the rest of the staff are the good fairies or the elves that are always ready to guide them and stimulate their creativity and sense of independence.

Educators and friendsThe center is evolving all the time. The people involved learn from the Danish experience how to interact positively with the children, how to

Children at the RODACIE crèche learning shapes and colours. Photo: Maria Coza

Painting on asphalt. Photo: Maria Coza Learning about means of transport. Photo: Maria Coza The rabbit talks to the children in the 2+ age group. Photo: Maria Coza

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BY NANNA FROST

Nanna Frost (born 1955), MA in Danish and German from Aarhus University, is currently the owner of the INPRACTICA consultancy. Previously, she was a manager for 23 years in the public education sector, during which time she was principal of a VUC adult learning centre. Her present work involves management, mergers, large-scale organisational development projects, development of new organisa tions, project development, funding and executive coaching of managers. In 2012, the VILLUM FOUNDATION granted DKK 5,481,000 to the Kanonen residential home to fund a social ini-tiative for vulnerable children and young people in Greenland. Previously, children from Greenland with educational or mental health problems were sent to Denmark for intervention or treat-ment. This project allows the young people to remain in the en-vironment which they will return to and live in. Under this pro-ject, a 24-hour placement of 10 young people aged 10-18 was achieved at Kangerlussuaq (Søndre Strømfjord). The employees are a mix of both Greenlanders and Danes, and part of the pro-ject aims to train the Greenlanders to a level enabling them to run the residential home independently. The objective is to hand over the residential care project to Greenland in 5 years’ time.

Background and perspectives The Orpigaq centre started up in January 2013 with 2 young peo-ple in residence. One of the more concrete aims was to reduce the list of children from Greenland waiting for treatment. The need for the service was great and 7 children were registered very quickly.

for vulnerable children and young people in Greenland

Orpigaq’s Kangerlussuaq building. Photo: The project

One of the common rooms at the Orpigaq centre. Photo: The project

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The project became a reality and Trine H. Pfeiffer, Director of the Kanonen foundation, took great pleasure in implementing a sustainable and repli-cable programme in the social work environment of Greenland.The project seeks to identify new methods of as-sisting socially vulnerable children and young peo-ple in Greenland, where residential care places for those at most risk are in short supply. There is a lack of professionals with the training to solve is-sues surrounding placement as well as a lack of sys-tems for diagnostics, treatment and aftercare. At present, there is a 6-year wait for psychiatric assess-ment because there is no standardised national re-ferral framework. The proportion of children taken into care is high at 8-10%. The objects of the project are: 1. To create a resi-dential care institution in Greenland, so children can receive professional care in their own national setting. 2. To train Greenlanders to solve national child welfare issues partly by direct training in so-cial work for 5 years and partly by encouraging lo-cal staff employed at the Orpigaq centre to take special in-service training courses in effective treat-ment and care provision.

Why Orpigaq?The aim is for the project to continue indepen-dently in 5 years’ time. By then, professional com-petencies and experience will have been gained, methods established and well functioning routines will have been developed to ensure continuation of the project. The Greenlandic staff will have com-pleted their training for running the centre, and the children and adolescents placed there will have received essential help to allow them to progress to stable and independent adulthood. In the short term, the aim is to place the young peo-ple away from their home environment and thus break a negative circle. Then, in collaboration with the relevant regional authority, arrangements will be made to encourage the young people to engage in employment, education, and leisure activities at the end of the placement. In the long term, the aim is to ensure that these young people will not be in danger of becoming socially vulnerable again, exposed to severe social problems, violence, self harm and addictions. At the end of the project, the aim is to have devel-oped best practices in social work of relevance to, and adapted to, conditions in Greenland, and that

can be communicated to others and serve as a model of effective aftercare. The target group is children and teenagers of both sexes, aged 10-18, who are at risk owing to alco-hol and/or drug misuse, depression, incest/sex-ual abuse, and delinquency issues. They are from Greenland institutions that are unable to house them, perhaps because they are a danger to them-selves or others, and/or have not received neces-sary treatment.

Methods, activities and effectThe methods employed are practical social work. The children can be placed at the centre for up to 3 years, ideally until they have finished the 9th year of secondary education. If possible, the whole of the family is included to ensure that the home environment is safe on the child’s return. The rel-evant education is also taken into account by offer-ing schooling at the centre itself or in collaboration with their existing school. The placement offers a high level of predictability, calm and order through a fixed daily structure at every level. The work involved in this structure is a prerequisite

for the next steps; work on relationships and social skills to prepare the young person for integrating into a normal school and/or work environment at the end of their placement. The Orpigaq centre mirrors ‘normal society’ in terms of consequences, but one important element is that no behaviour can cause a resident to be excluded from the pro-ject. Treatment will be individualised for each resi-dent’s issues and challenges. The ultimate, long-term effect of the project will be to have provided preventive protection, by mak-ing it less attractive for a young person to become part of a criminal, violent or drug addictive envi-ronment. The young are kept away from groups where undesirable activities are central and are in-stead given a meaningful alternative. Research has proven that one method is to: 1. As-sist endangered children and young people to en-gage in new group relations. 2. To help them to adopt alternative or new values that displace the incentive for joining harmful environments. 3. To encourage their interest in society. 4. To provide new positive role models, e.g. people who have successfully overcome the attraction of crime/sub-stance misuse.

Snowtime! Photo: The project Sunset at Kangerlussuaq. Photo: Projektet

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Five instruments representing the five universal principles of sound production: aerophone, membranophone, electrophone, chordo-phone, and idiophone. Photo: The Danish Music Museum

The Music Museum intends to stimulate interest in the world of music among children and adults, laymen and specialists, music consumers and music performers. This is done by arousing curiosity, putting questions and es-tablishing relations between sound and object, musi-cal expression, craftsmanship, and technological devel-opment. Photo: Kurt Larsen

From Dream to Reality:

Music Museum BY LISBET TORP

Lisbet Torp (born 1949) graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 1972. She defended her doctorate at the University of Copenhagen in 1990. From 1998-2006 she was director of Musik-historisk Museum and the Carl Claudius Collection in Copenhagen. Since 2006, when the Music Mu-seum joined the Danish National Museum, she has been curator and head of collections at the National Museum. Lisbet Torp is president of CIMCIM – the committee of music museums and collections under UNESCO’s international museum organisation ICOM.

In 2012, the VELUX FOUNDATION granted DKK 6,000,000 for the foundation of a new exhibition space in connection with the reloca-tion of the Music Museum to its new prem-ises in the former Broadcasting House. Here the museum is situated next door to the Royal Danish Academy of Music as well as Copen-hagen Phil (Sjællands Symfoniorkester). As such, the future holds potential for all kinds of promising multidisciplinary collaborations and activities, when the museum opens in its new surroundings in summer 2014. Here the public will meet the world of music presented in sequences where heritage and contemporary musical instruments, sound, and interactivity offer knowledge and experience – and where the visitor can experiment with instruments of the types seen and heard in the exhibition.

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From dream to realityDenmark is a country of museums, with more than 100 museums for the history of culture, na-ture, and art – small and big museums, local, re-gional, and national. Most museums are governed by boards, directors, and curators all of whom find that “their” museum is special. Hence, they fight to secure the best conditions possible for presentation of their collections. However, although many dream about such op-portunities, only few have the luck to experience the pleasure – and challenge of creating a new mu-seum. The VELUX FOUNDATION’s donation permitted the Music Museum and the National Museum to engage in preparing two storeys in the former Broadcasting House and preparing them for museum purposes. The idea of moving from a quiet life in the street of Aabenraa to a lively music environment in the former Broadcasting House was by no means new. In fact it formed as early as 2008 when the Royal Danish Academy of Music had moved into its new facilities. The building was buzzing with life – but parts of it were still vacant. It was difficult to let go of the idea of a musical house-share once it had presented itself. It gave room for new thinking both with regard to exhibitions and presentations – it was a unique opportunity.

Physical settings and future perspectives at Rosenørns AlléDesigned by the famous Danish architect Vilhem Lauritzen, Broadcasting House was built during 1937-1945 and extended with yet another wing in the fifties. With its choice interiors and exqui-site materials, the building complex is a unique example of the transition between functionalism and modernism and is therefore considered one of the major works of Danish 20th century archi-tecture.In these inspiring surroundings – and with the Music Academy as close neighbours – the Music Museum will be pursuing its visions and intensify-ing its mission to stimulate interest in the world of music among children and adults, laymen and

specialists, music audiences and music performers. The library and archive reopened in the winter of 2014. The opening of the exhibition level follows in the summer of 2014 presenting the museum’s unique collection of musical instruments in excit-ing fascinating and inspiring setting thanks to the donation from the VELUX FOUNDATION.

Exhibitions – presentation – activitiesThe new exhibition meets both those visitors who consciously or unconsciously prefer to fol-low a chronological or otherwise structured path through the exhibition as well as those who are ruled by their senses and curiosity.The exhibition runs along two parallel paths. One presents Western musical culture from Antiquity

The painting of four musicians at the court of Danish King Christian IV adorn the section on Renaissance mu-sic in the new exhibition. It was painted by the Dan-ish painter Reinhold Timm in 1622 – the year when the king appointed the famous viola da gamba player Thomas Simpson and a year after the English harp play-er Darby Scott (to the left in the painting) had joined the court. Photo: Ole Woldbye


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Electric guitar designed and made by the luthier and industrial designer Ulrich Teuffel, Germany 2001. The design of the Birdfish-guitar is minimalistic and the concept based on interchangeable modules. The guitar body is substituted by two tonebars: one set made from swamp ash and another from maple. The three pickups can be positioned indi-vidually and the leg rest functions as a handle when the guitar is carried in its special gigbag. Photo: Stefan Schmied

It looks like a work by Picasso or Dali, how-ever, the violino arpa is the result of a 19th century search for a larger and more power-ful tone. The idea behind the shape of the instruments is attributed to the Hungari-an Count Gregor Sturdza on whose request the Hungarian violin maker Thomas Zach made the violino arpa. The violin was first introduced at the World Ex-hibition in Vienna in 1873. However, it never became the revolutionary novel-ty they had hoped for. Instead of being large and powerful, the tone was nasal and mud-dy. Only very few were made, and hence, the violino arpa remained an intellectual experi-ment. Photo: Ole Wold-bye and Pernille Klemp

to the 19th century, and the other takes the visitor through the development of musical life on Danish soil from the Bronze Age to the 19th century. The two paths meet in the 20th and 21st centuries when the instruments have come under the influence of increasing globalisation, mass production, and the development of electrically amplified and electronic instruments. Between these two paths one finds the Sound Arcade where the five universal principles of sound production are illustrated in vis-ual, audible and tactile terms with musical instruments from dif-ferent cultures worldwide. The exhibition space at the end of the arcade is dedicated to non-European music cultures.Next to this is the Splendour Room – a section where exquisite craftsmanship, fascinating shapes, and wild experiments challenge each other. This is followed by a section for live music and presen-tation of current themes.Last, but not least, the Clang Room – a musical play room where children and adults alike can try out musical instruments – known and unknown – and experiment with sound.The Sounding Museum is a special educational programme with activities for children and young people. The programme includes three tracks, each organised in three parts: 1) physical-practical experience of the instruments from a given period/genre/culture in special rooms with inspiring fittings and musical instruments funded by Den Obelske Familiefond, 2) dialogue-based guided tours of the exhibition, and 3) a concert related to the theme cho-sen. The programme will be available to educational institutions from autumn 2014. Today, music is a product which thanks to portable media can be enjoyed anywhere and anytime. Nevertheless, many people have never attended a live concert, nor do they know what the various musical instruments they listen to look like. At the new exhibition, the visitors’ curiosity is aroused through putting questions and establishing relations between sound and object, musical expres-sion, craftsmanship and technological development. The Danish Music Museum sees it as one of its most important tasks to widen the musical horizons of its visitors. It is a privilege to have been given the opportunity to realise this dream.

Two sides of the same thing. Accord-ing to the Danish composer Niels W. Gade, this heart-shaped pendant made from lava and framed in gold once belonged to W.A. Mozart who wore it in his watch chain. The pen-dant came to Denmark with Mo-zart’s widow Constance, who lived in Copenhagen from 1810-20 after having married the Danish diplo-mat Georg N. Nissen. Photo: Pernille Klemp


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In 2012, the VILLUM FOUNDATION granted DKK 5,700,000 for the research project “Biodiversity and socioeconomic values in Danish forests: Optimizing multiple objectives related to forest eco-system goods and services”. The project is being run over the period 2012-2015 at the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate (CMEC) at the Natural History Museum, University of Copen-hagen. The project’s staff are Professor Carsten Rahbek (principal in-vestigator), and the following researchers: Anders Højgård Petersen, Thomas H. Lundhede, Niels Strange, Bo Jellesmark Thorsen, Jacob Heilmann-Clausen and Hans Henrik Bruun, all at University of Co-penhagen, together with contributions from WWF Denmark. The background to the project is that the need for conservation of bio-diversity in Denmark will influence future Danish forests policy and management.

The biodiversity of the forestDenmark was once a forest land. After the last ice age, the forest spread from the south and covered most of the country, as it had done between the ice ages for millions of years. This is why a large proportion of the fauna in Denmark even today are adapted to forest habitats. A survey of around 8,000 Danish animals, plants and fungi reveals that 64% occur in woodlands and that 36% are confined to woodland (see Figure 1). About 17% of Danish species are considered threatened, and of these, half are confined to forest habitats.The reason that so many different species are found in woodland is that the original extensive forest was highly diversified. There were numerous tree, bush and shrub species. The former dense forest was varied with more open areas. There were areas of tall trees and marshy areas with lower alder thicket and scrubs. There were young trees, old hollow trees and fallen, decaying tree trunks. There were light gaps, glades and wood-land meadows grazed by large wild animals.

Conservation of biodiversityTo explain why so many woodland species are threatened, we have to look far back in time. Human populations expanded and cleared the forests to provide firewood and timber and to cultivate the land. By the early 1800s, only a few per cent of the original Danish forests remained. Later, the for-ested area increased again – now with woodland covering about 15% of

Figure 1. Distribution of Danish animal, plant and fungi by different habitats. The estimates are based on 8,005 terrestrial species as-sessed in the Danish Red Data Book. Note that some species are found in more than one habitat, which is why the sum of the columns is above 100%. Graphics: Authors

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Anders Højgård Petersen (born 1961) is a biologist and special consultant at Center for Macroe-cology, Evolution and Climate (CMEC) at the Natural History Museum, University of Copenhagen. He has more than 20 years of ex-perience of investigating human impacts on the environment and living orga-nisms. He is currently engaged in quantitative and cross disciplinary analysis of biodi-versity data mainly in a Danish nature conservation context. Thomas Hedemark Lundhede (born 1972) holds a Danish Cand. Silv. and a PhD degree in Envi-ronmental Economics. He is currently associate professor at the Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenha-gen. He has more than 10 years of experience in valuation of non-marketed goods, including recreation and biodiversity.

Carsten Rahbek (born 1965), Professor at the Natural History Museum, University of Copenhagen (2001-), assistant professor at Peking University (2012-) and head of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate (CMEC) (2010-). He is among the 1% most-cited scientists in the world, a member of the Danish Royal Academy of Sciences and Let-ters and the recipient of numerous national and inter-national awards.

the country – but these forests were different. The new forests were planted by humans, and for 200 years they were managed with the main purpose of providing firewood and timber. However, the last remains of the original, primeval forest disappeared and modern forestry became the main threat to woodland species. Typically a forest managed mainly for timber pro-duction is highly homogeneous. It is typically made up of stands of sameaged single species. Un-dergrowth and fallen branches and trunks are re-moved, and when the stand is ready, all the trees are felled at the same time. Furthermore, most Danish forests are artificially drained. The combined effect of this is to reduce the number of different habitats and thus the forest’s biodiversity as a whole.Although initiatives have been taken in recent years to improve conditions for species in the forests, halting the loss of biodiversity in Denmark will re-quire a far more substantial effort. One effective solution is to stop commercial forestry in selected forests and allow them to develop more naturally

(see Figure 2). In association with the Danish Eco-nomic Councils, we recently showed that this is actually also relatively cheap as compared to the effort needed in open natural areas such as grass-lands and heathlands. The importance of forest for the conservation of biodiversity in Denmark is the starting point for this project.

Forest ecosystem servicesAnother important aspect is that the forests in Denmark, like elsewhere, are increasingly expect-ed to serve several purposes. The forests are no longer required to provide timber only, but also renewable energy, carbon sequestration and stor-age for the benefit of the climate; the setting for outdoor recreation; to protect groundwater re-sources; and to conserve biodiversity. All of these factors are referred to as ‘ecosystem services’ (see Figure 3). Focusing on the last of these – con-servation of biodiversity – we will investigate the interaction between these services in relation to future Danish forest policy.

Figure 3. Summary of the main eco-system services provided by wood-lands. Ecosystem services is now used as a common term for the benefits (good, services and processes) gained from the ecosystems. Graphics: Authors

For many years, Danish forest policy has been based on multifunc-tional management of the individual forests. However, in practice, true win-win situations are rarely achieved because the different needs tend to be conflicting. If we produce more timber, the result is less biodiversity conservation. If we cut down the trees and burn them, less carbon is stored. And if we use pesticides to improve the quality of greenery we may reduce groundwater protection. Ad-dressing this dilemma is another principal aim of this project.Starting with biodiversity, we have compiled the best available data on species distribution in Denmark. Where do we find butterflies, hoverflies, birds, mammals, orchids and mushrooms? – and where don’t we? Based on our findings, we will be identifying the forests that constitute the most costefficient network for conservation of forest biodiversity in Denmark. But the project will also be mapping other ecosystem services. Which forests are the most important for the production of tim-ber, for outdoor recreation, for ground water protection and CO2 budget? Finally, the project will seek to identify the functional relation-ships. If we choose to manage selected forests with biodiversity conservation as the main objective, what will be the consequences for timber production? – or the CO2 budget? We will also be in-vestigating whether some services can be optimised concurrently. In short, where are the geographical overlaps, where are the con-flicts and trade-offs or where do we find perfect synergies between different services – true win-win-scenarios?

Different targets in different forestsThe general question is whether overall gains can be made by dif-ferentiation of the functional targets across different forest areas: “Untouched” biodiversity forests, forests close to urban areas for outdoor recreation, production forests for timber and others for biofuel, forests for the protection of sensitive ground water re-sources etc. We will try to answer that question through scientific analyses. It should be noted that a differentiation strategy of this kind would not prevent forests from providing some of the other services.

Figure 2. Natural, unmanaged broadleaved forest. Example from southern Sweden. Leaving more forests unmanaged will considerably enhance the conservation of a diverse natural flora and fauna. Photo: Jacob Heilmann-Clausen

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In 2012, the VILLUM FOUNDATION grant-ed Oceana EUR 800,000 to conduct an at-sea expedition to document offshore habitats and ecosystems throughout the Baltic and Kattegat and the threats to those habitats, both inside and outside existing Marine Protected Areas. Oceana’s expedition was conducted with the research vessel Hanse Explorer, from which Oceana’s divers and a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) took high-definition videos and photographs and collected samples for analysis. Data was then analysed and compiled into re-ports, which were used by Oceana and its part-ners to advocate with governments and regu-lators for improved protections for threatened Baltic marine habitats and fisheries.

In 2009, Oceana identified the Baltic Sea as a unique ecosystem under threat. The Baltic is a

young, shallow and low-salinity sea (0.6 per cent in the Gulf of Bothnia to around 2.5 per cent in the Kattegat, compared with open oceans at 3.5 per cent). The Baltic’s salinity is too low for most Atlantic and North Sea species, and too high for many freshwater species. It is therefore home to a mixture of marine and fresh water species that have been able to adapt to this environment, where each one has a larger role to play in main-taining the structure and dynamics of the whole system. These factors make for a particularly frag-ile ecosystem that is extremely vulnerable to hu-man-induced disturbances.

Marine Protected AreasOne of Oceana’s primary goals for the Baltic Sea is to achieve an ecologically coherent and well-managed network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) covering around 30 per cent of its sur-

Oceana: Restoring the Baltic Sea

BY ANDREW SHARPLESS

Oceana diver in shallow seabed near the coast. Åland Islands, Finland. Oceana Baltic Sea Expedition II onboard the Hanse Explorer. May 2012. Photo: OCEANA Carlos Suárez.Andrew Sharpless (born 1957) was educated

at Harvard College, Harvard Law School and the London School of Economics. He wor-ked for five years at McKinsey & Co. and subsequently became one of the founding managers of RealNetworks, the online music and video play-back technology pioneers. He then went on to lead Disco-very.com – the online division of Discovery Channel. He became CEO of Oceana in 2003.

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face by 2020. The network will protect both habitats and species, with an emphasis on the protection of the spawning and feeding grounds of important species. Scientists recognise well-located and well-managed MPAs as a powerful tool to protect and enable recovery of marine biodiversity. Under the Natura 2000 process, each EU member state is man-dated to create a MPA network in its national waters; but mandat-ing MPAs is not enough to ensure that they are effective. Coun-tries must use scientific data to designate MPAs and determine how they should be properly managed. MPAs too often exist only as lines on a map, without prohibitions against fishing or indus-trial activity such as gravel extraction. Following the 2012 research expedition (Oceana’s second expe-dition in two years), Oceana published evidence of the need to protect specific marine habitats and species in the Baltic. Oceana’s work included videos, GIS mapping and other docu-mentary materials. Oceana publications have been used by other NGOs, environmental and fisheries ministries, scientific institu-tions, and political bodies like the Helsinki Commission (HEL-COM) and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) as the basis for discussion and decision about what can be done for the Baltic. Copies of these publications are avail-able on Oceana’s Baltic website: http://baltic.oceana.org/en/bl/media-reports/reports.

Surprising findingsOceana’s findings in the Baltic were often bleak, but were also, on occasion, surprising and uplifting, as our team did find rem-nants of habitats and species thought to have been lost. Based on our findings, Oceana made the case for 12 new or expanded MPAs located in Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Poland, and many of these have already been accepted by the relevant gov-ernments. Finland has agreed to work towards the extension of an exist-ing MPA in the Hanko Peninsula, and the development of new MPAs proposed by Oceana in Ulkokrunni and Merikalla have been proposed to the European Commission or are awaiting of-ficial protection.

Sweden has expressed interest in protecting a coastal area west of Gothenburg, on Djupa Rännan trench (one of our proposed MPAs in the Kattegat), and we have received confirmation from the Åland Islands regional government of its intent to protect an area south of Åland Islands and Bogskär that we also have proposed. We are also working with the Polish government on the estab-lishment of the Kepa Redlowska MPAs; the government request-ed that Oceana research the area with that purpose. Finally, though its process of designating areas will not begin until next year, Denmark requested and used Oceana expedi-tion’s data on Modiolus modiolus (mollusk reef) and Haploops (benthic crustacean) communities in their environmental analy-sis required by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

OceanaOceana is an international non-profit organisation entirely de-voted to improving the health of the world’s oceans and seas. Oceana integrates science-based campaigns with policy, econom-ics, at-sea expeditions, law and media in order to achieve changes that make marine biodiversity conservation compatible with the economic and sustainable use of ocean resources. Since its incep-tion in 2001, Oceana has succeeded in protecting over 1.2 mil-lion square miles of ocean.Oceana started working in Europe in November 2004 and now has operations based in Madrid (Mediterranean and Atlantic), Brussels (EU policy) and Copenhagen (Baltic Sea and Kattegat). Oceana’s Baltic Sea Recovery project was launched in January 2011 and is now led by Hanna Paulomäki, a Finnish citizen and marine scientist. In keeping with the Oceana model of employ-ing nationals of the countries and regions where we work, the Baltic Sea office is staffed by seven Baltic country nationals (6.5 FTE) who among them speak Danish, Swedish, Russian, Polish, Finnish, German, Spanish, Greek and English. Copenhagen was chosen as the principal base for the project, due to its strategic location in the Baltic Sea and Kattegat and the presence of a number of important Baltic Sea stakeholders and key science and research institutions.

2012 expedition route map. Graphic: OCEANA

ROV in the water and the Hanse Ex-plorer behind. Klints Bank North, Eastern Gotland Basin, Sweden. Oceana Baltic Sea Expedition II on-board the Hanse Explorer. Photo: OCEANA Carlos Minguell.

Launching the ROV. Frybanken North, Kattegat, Denmark. Oceana Baltic Sea Expedition II onboard the Hanse Explorer. April 2012. Photo OCEANA Carlos Minguell

Male of lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) and Oceana diver. Södra Midsjö-banken, Southern Baltic Proper, Swe-den. Oceana Baltic Sea Expedition II onboard the Hanse Explorer. Photo: OCEANA Carlos Minguell

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One of the main puzzles of our time is how to avoid climate change and safeguard ecosystem health while simultaneously improving human wellbeing and sustaining the economy. As a ma-jor culture-shaping institution, the business sec-tor plays an important role in the road towards a more sustainable society. How can corporations promote environmental and social sustainability, and at the same time achieve positive returns on investment?As a part of the “Build a Living Economy” pro-ject, Worldwatch Institute Europe is showcasing several European companies that are generating business value while considering environmental and social challenges. Our viewpoint is that return on investment can be enhanced through sustain-

able business practices. Hence, a recent Harvard Business School paper concluded that the group classified as High Sustainability firms financially outperformed their counterparts, categorised as Low Sustainability firms (measuring stock perfor-mance from 1993 to 2010). However, our research emphasises that managing both financial and sustainability performance is a game of careful considerations due to the exist-ence of trade-offs in costs (i.e. converting a tra-ditional energy-plant into a sustainable one could lead to the loss of jobs). Consideration must be given also to what areas of sustainability to focus on, and on timing (legislation, social expecta-tions) when choosing the option carrying greater value.

Business Innovation in a Living Economy

In 2011, the VELUX FOUNDATION granted DKK 2,435,000 to the project “New Architecture for Sustainable Prosperity: Build a Living Economy”. The overall objective of the project is to help mobilise a European constituency behind the UN goal of deepening the commitment to sus-tainable development norms, values, and policies. The project focuses on outlining the shape of a green and living economy where we conduct research to target the good examples of sustainability innovation, organise a series of public events in European cities, and implement a communications platform to foster a sustained European conversation on sustainabil-ity and green economy issues. The project team consists of researchers, experts, communicators and volunteers of many different European nationalities.

BY BO NORMANDER

Bo Normander (born 1971), MSc, PhD, and the Director of World-watch Institute Europe, headquartered in Copenhagen since 2011. The European office works alongside the Worldwatch Institute in the U.S. to fulfil the joint vision for a Sustainable World. He is also the Chairman of the Danish Ecological Council and former Senior Advisor at Aarhus University.

The principles of a Living Economy. Illustration: Liselotte Østerby and Josefine Campbell

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An innovation-driven economyWhat business people really need is a paradigm shift in the way they think about making their profits. Proactive thinkers have the talent to in-spire and motivate people around them towards a higher goal, i.e. giving their industry a make-over, changing their business model, disrupting the market through innovation etc. In doing so, system-thinking is crucial, because it forces peo-ple out of their comfort zone and it allows the mind to be open to unforeseen possibilities and to question outdated practices.A Living Economy is an economy that has as a goal of improving human wellbeing and quality of life, moving away from pointless consumer-ism, without compromising natural resources. In a Living Economy, companies engage in multi-ple sustainable initiatives, but it is our view that one of the most important pillars of sustainable business in a living economy is the ability to in-novate. In our research we have seen patterns of different kinds of innovations, which we have classified into different categories from transi-tional innovation (e.g. recycling of resources) to more radical and transformative innovation (e.g.

implementing an entire new business model).One of the ways a company in a living economy creates value is by considering its relationships with its surroundings, both material and human. For example, the Dutch start-up Floow2 built their commercial concept up on a principle of us-ing the web to disseminate information on avail-able resources that can be rented out to compa-nies that do not want to own or bear the cost of maintenance of heavy industrial equipment. This business model has created a new market where otherwise competing companies exchange equipment and resources and thereby impact the environment (and the economy) less.

Principles for sustainability management Some of the true innovators today are those business people who are inspiring change within their business organisations. We have found that regardless of whether business managers that succeed in sustainability performance come from large corporations, small companies, or start-ups, they all lead their business organisations based on three common principles:

Worldwatch Institute Europe’s report series on Living Economy.

Natural resources are becoming more and more scarce, forcing corporations to realign their business models to-wards sustainability. Illustration: Alejandra Bize

How can corporations help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent climate change? Illustration: Alejandra Bize

Principle 1: An inclusive management style is needed to get things going.Principle 2: Change requires leadership and top management support.Principle 3: Strengthening the market position takes cultural change.

Collaboration at an internal and external level is key in a living economy (Principle 1). Employees in particular are positively impacted by an inclu-sive management style, their motivation increases as does their productivity. For example, the man-agement of the Greek cosmetics company, Apiv-ita, has succeeded in engaging employees and customers in its business models by continuously sharing new ideas and initiatives and engaging in civil society projects such as the establishment of a Botanical Garden that will both safeguard the biodiversity of ancient Greece and explain about invaluable services of nature, such as bee prod-ucts (honey, wax, etc) that are main ingredients in Apivita’s product range.

Top-down or bottom-up?Can new initiatives emerge bottom up? Certainly, but at some point they will need top management support, since significant change is only possible when you have that support (Principle 2). At the sportswear company Puma the CEO took a major lead in the implementation of green accounting.

At Tetrapak, top management for a long period continuously supported sustainability strategies, even when they were not the best financial op-tion, as was the case of using bioplastic material in their carton containers. It is certain that these initiatives would not have happened without the continued support of top management.Finally, Principle 3 implies that making a shift towards a collaborative mindset in the business organisation and creating the market for new ser-vices and products requires cultural change within the company. Culture can be changed gradually over time. One way of achieving this is by engag-ing the organisation in projects that challenge the competencies and capabilities of the company. A small new initiative might not seem game-chang-ing in itself but the organisational learning from new types of projects such as new collaborations should not be underestimated. In most cases, the change towards a living econ-omy will be a gradual transition, as illustrated by Van Houtum, a Dutch company supplying a range of bathroom solutions. The company recently launched cradle-to-cradle certified toilet paper, by collecting excess paper from their wholesalers among other initiatives. The business is going well, and the next step is to realign the company cul-ture towards a common goal to embed a business model in which all products are manufactured ac-cording to the cradle-to-cradle principle.

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