There are many academic groups, networks and campaigns pushing for democratic practices and policies within the University of Copenhagen. These tackle diverse yet interconnected issues including: social justice, climate justice, academic freedom, an end to complicity in colonialism and genocide, women’s and queer rights, and an end to line management and power concentration within the university. A non-exhaustive list is below (please contact us if you’d like your group or network to be added!):
- Studerende Mod Besaettelsen
- Den Grønne Ungdomsbevægelse
- Academics for Palestine
- Students at KU for Decolonized, Diverse, and Inclusive Educational Spaces
- Anarkistiske Studerende
- Scientist Rebellion
- Movement for a Free Academia
- Eye on Global Health
- Degrowth CPH
- The UCPH Degrowth Network
- Den Grønne Forskernetværk
- Queer Union Københavns Universitet
Below, we highlight some ongoing campaigns and struggles happening today within the university:
1) Campaign to boycott and divest from the genocide in Palestine
What are the students and staff demanding?
The student group Studerende Mod Besaettelsen (SMB), in collaboration with members of the staff network Academics for Palestine, have been demanding that the university:
- Recognise and condemn the ongoing genocide and call for an immediate ceasefire and the lifting of the siege on Gaza
- Permanently withdraw their investments from companies that profit from or are complicit in the occupation of Palestine.
- Offer full financial transparency in relation to their investments
- End their procurement agreements with companies that profit from or are complicit in the occupation of Palestine
- Commit to an academic boycott by ending institutional co-operation with Israeli academic institutions, like they did with Russian institutions at the onset of the Ukraine invasion
- Recognise the plight of its Palestinian students
What have they done and how has management responded?
Since September 2021, after they were informed by journalists that KU had millions invested in UN-blacklisted corporations involved in the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, the group Studerende Mod Besaettelsen launched a campaign to get management to divest, including repeated meetings with the rector, flyering, legal demonstrations at all KU campuses, and the publishing of a report on research into the university’s finances. By October 2023, the group had collected 2,092 signatures by students, faculty and staff supporting divestment, which was presented to the rector and the board, and then ignored. After the onset of the full-scale invasion of Gaza, the group started carrying out peaceful protests outside the Board’s meetings. On May 6th, 2024, after several years of not being listened to, SMB established the Gaza solidarity encampment in the CSS central city campus, with the support of several staff and student groups, including Academics for Palestine. One month later, the Board agreed to divest from their current investments in the blacklisted corporations, but not to commit to permanently divest in the future. The Board has refused to agree to a boycott of Isreaeli academic institutions or to recognize the ongoing genocide. On September 4th, SMB occupied the rectorate building, together with Greta Thunberg, demanding a full academic boycott. The rectorate called on dozens of police with rifles to remove its own students from the building. Six students, including Greta, were arrested.
https://www.instagram.com/studerendemodbesaettelsen
2) Campaign to place sustainability as a strategic ambition for 2030
What are the students and staff demanding?
The student group Den Grønne Ungdomsbevægelse / The Green Youth Movement (DGUB) – in collaboration with members of the staff network Den Grønne Forskernetværk / The Green Researcher Network (DGFN) – carried out a campaign in 2023, while the university was preparing its overall strategy for 2030, which included the allocation of DKK 300 million in strategic funding. The ambition document draft had been largely written by management after non-binding consultations with staff. In light of the climate and ecological emergency and the current challenges UCPH faces in integrating sustainable perspectives into education and research, DGUB recognized it was irresponsible to create a strategy without a strong ambition and funding for sustainability efforts. Therefore, with the support of DGFN, the student group was demanding that sustainability become one of the strategic ambitions for the university. Suggestions for what this could involve in practice included: the integration of sustainability into KU’s academic programmes, the creation of a compulsory course on sustainability for all students, the expansion of sustainability courses and electives, the enactment of a sustainability university charter and the establishment of sustainability assemblies in all faculties, among others.
What have they done and how has management responded?
DGUB launched a campaign in 2023. The campaign included gathering signatures, conscientization efforts and bi-monthly protests outside the rectorate, during KU Board meetings. Despite these efforts, sustainability was not added as a strategic ambition in the final strategy document. Instead, the word “sustainability” was peppered into various already-existing sections of the document, but none of the suggestions made by SMB were included in it.
Read more:
3) Involve students and staff in budgetary decision-making
What are the students and staff demanding?
The students and staff are demanding that they are democratically involved in the budgetary decision-making process, which now falls into the hands of a few people at the top of the university’s line management and on the university Board. The decision by management to fire over 190 people as part of the Administration “reform” was the latest example of the lack of democratic structures at KU. Standing against management’s decision, students and staff argued that, if the local anchoring of study administration staff disappears, teaching staff would risk having to spend a lot of extra time on study and course administration, and that students will have to look far and wide for study-specific development of the study environment and well-being. The new centralized administration that was rammed by management stood to be without the necessary local knowledge, and the support provided would be less thorough and the quality of teaching will be further compromised.
What have they done and how has management responded?
The reform was met with widespread discontent by students and staff, including a petition signed by 466 teaching and research staff demanding management involve the staff in the decision. They argued they were deprived of any real say in the matter, but management still continued with this reform. It was later revealed by UniAvisen (the independent university newspaper which was, for a time, also under risk of being closed down) that the reform came after management unilaterally decided to spend 57,6 million DKK of the university’s budget into an external consulting firm, which was the one that advocated for the firings. Coincidentally, the reason for the reform, management argued, was to “save money.”
Read more here: