Board

Ilisimatusarfik's Board has drawn up the strategy with general regard to the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals and will actively work to implement these.

Objective 1: Ilisimatusarfik will strengthen the quality of our programs and promote new programs

Ilisimatusarfik educate in-demand graduates who contribute to Greenlandic workplaces with value-creating skills and new knowledge. To ensure continued quality and international level in Ilisimatusarfik's programs, and to ensure coherence between society's need for skilled labor and the graduates' competences, Ilisimatusarfik will:

• Adopt and implement a quality policy that can be used for accreditation purposes and thus be a measure of societal relevance and demands from society.
• Strengthen a closer and more formalized collaboration with the end user, among other things by arranging seminars with public and private companies, and ensure that all curricula include end user contact.
• Support an improvement of the primary and lower secondary school results through further development and research-based teaching in our teacher program. 
• Increase cooperation with high schools with a view to solving transition problems, and focus on knowledge exchange, development and coordination of new academic initiatives.
• Ensure a strengthened focus on distance learning through courses and workshops, as well as through collaboration with other universities with a focus on both the didactic and pedagogical aspect.
• Work to be able to offer more flexible master’s and graduate’s programs.
• Create a natural science bachelor’s degree program. 
• Strengthen a continuous pedagogical development with a focus on student-activating teaching.
• Strengthen the study environment and work for greater well-being among students.
• Increase focus on the possibilities for external funding of programs.
• Focus on increasing diversity among students, to maximize the potential for creativity, innovation and quality of education.

Objective 2: Ilisimatusarfik will strengthen its research and advisory function for the benefit of the Greenlandic and Arctic society

Greenlandic society still needs to strengthen the power of innovation and anchor science in the country. It is Ilisimatusarfik's goal to expand the professional breadth in relation to society's needs and the resources available.

Ilisimatusarfik is one of the most important social institutions and works to bring its knowledge into play in dialogue and interaction with Greenlandic civil society, businesses and organizations.

Dissemination of knowledge and participation in the public debate must increasingly become an integral part of Ilisimatusarfik's contribution to the outside world.

Ilisimatusarfik will strengthen its research position by:

• Ensure dynamic research strategies for all institutes and departments.
• Organize increased collaboration with businesses and institutions, possibly through enrollment of business PhD students. 
• Continue to focus on interaction between researchers, researcher educational programs and educational programs in general, and with the respective fields of practice users and end users in society. 
• Ensure that all programs have sufficient scientific staff employed to ensure and strengthen the academic quality, and that all departments have affiliated PhD students.
• Utilize the international focus on the Arctic to strengthen the profiling of Greenland and the university, in collaboration with other research institutions.
• Strengthen communication with and dissemination to the surrounding community, with a view to a higher utilization of the university's knowledge, e.g., with a focus on increased popular science dissemination.
• Utilize Greenland's special position within the international work with indigenous peoples' rights.
• Increase focus on external funding of research and development projects.
• Actively participate in the work with national guidelines on research ethics as well as work to build ethical guidelines internally at the university, possibly through the establishment of a Review Board.

Objective 3: Ilisimatusarfik will promote the interaction and collaboration between the university's various academic environments

The society of today and the future faces more and more complex challenges, which increase the need for Ilisimatusarfik to take new paths and think across traditional professional boundaries. In order to come up with new solutions, Ilisimatusarfik's professionalism is needed in a strengthened collaboration across the professional disciplines.

Ilisimatusarfik supports the creation of new academic development opportunities in research and education by:

• Support interdisciplinary research initiatives.
• Expand interdisciplinary collaboration through Ilisimatusarfik's research centers.
• Ensure the academic coordination of the programs, taking into account the academic progression and individual academic profile of the individual educational programs.
• Work to be able to establish a unified campus area to meet current and future research and educational wishes and needs. The goal is to build new buildings for a physical unity for all Ilisimatusarfik's educational programs and research environments.

Objective 4: Ilisimatusarfik will promote internationalization for both students and staff

Ilisimatusarfik is an internationally oriented Arctic university and is actively involved in many international partnerships and forums. Exchange of knowledge, ideas and solutions are crucial prerequisites for any university.

Ilisimatusarfik will continue to strengthen the framework for internationalization for both students and staff by:

• Increase efforts to inform and guide students about exchange opportunities.
• Enter into and ensure follow-up on partnerships with foreign institutions on semester stays, educational programs and research educations.
• Encourage and provide support for student and staff study and conference travel.
• Give staff the opportunity for research stays abroad, e.g., through the collection of tuition-free semesters and assistance with fund applications.
• Contribute to making the stay of international guest students at Ilisimatusarfik easier.
• Encourage students and staff to publish more internationally.

Objective 5: Ilisimatusarfik will ensure focus on talent development

A well-functioning research educational program is essential for the further development of the university. Ilisimatusarfik wants to attract and retain the most skilled talents and offer attractive careers for the benefit of national capacity building and for the development of Arctic research.

Ilisimatusarfik will create the framework for early talent development by:

• Ensure that local students are qualified and competitive in their applications for the PhD program.
• Increase the amount of co-financed PhD scholarships.
• Strengthen the PhD area by further consolidating the PhD school.
• Ensure that good student projects are disseminated to society, and support that students publish their bachelor's and / or master's theses in scientific journals.
• Strengthen educational programs and project participation through collaboration with business and institutions / organizations.

Objective 6: Ilisimatusarfik will ensure focus on language

Ilisimatusarfik is Greenland's only university and has a special obligation to contribute to the development of the Greenlandic language. This will be done through a focus on the use of all three languages: Greenlandic, Danish and English - with a special focus on Greenlandic as a cultural language.

Ilisimatusarfik will focus on the use of language by:

• Strengthen the students' competences and prerequisites for successful studies by encouraging students to acquire more language skills, offer language courses in Greenlandic, Danish and English, as well as courses in study techniques and academic writing skills.
• Ensure the Greenlandic language as a complete and societal language.
• Strengthen the Greenlandic language and its development as a mother tongue and second language.
• Address and remove existing language barriers so that multilingualism can become a strength.
• Promote continuity in language acquisition in society in order to strengthen Greenland as a knowledge society.
• Work for the establishment of a center for language development.

• 16 June 2021
• 04 May 2021
• 10 March 2021
• 01 December 2020
• 24 September 2020
• 25 August 2020
• 29 May 2020

• 11 November 2019
• 27 May 2019
• 09 April 2019
• 03 December 2018
• 27 September 2018
• 04 May 2018
• 21 March 2018

• 29 November 2017
• 28 September 2017
• 29 May 2017
• 28 May 2017 (pre meeting)
• 27 March 2017
• 25 November 2016
• 20 September 2016

• 11 November 2019
• 27 May 2019
• 09 April 2019
• 03 December 2018
• 27 September 2018
• 04 May 2018
• 21 March 2018

• 29 November 2017
• 28 September 2017
• 29 May 2017
• 28 May 2017 (pre meeting)
• 27 March 2017
• 25 November 2016
• 20 September 2016