DARA participated in the Science Cluster Day 2025, hosted by the Novo Nordisk Foundation earlier this week. This annual event brought together grant holders and key stakeholders to recognize impactful research and strengthen connections across projects, disciplines, and institutions. As a newly established academy, DARA greatly valued the opportunity to engage with Denmark’s outstanding scientific communities.

We are once again grateful for the strong interest in our DARA PhD fellowship calls. With both calls closing on the 20 of February, the evaluation process is now underway. We expect to announce the recipients of the DARA Winter 2025/26 calls in June.

We are pleased to see that our partner, the Danish Data Science Academy (DDSA) has received DKK 75 million in renewed funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation for 2027–2031. The funding enables the academy to continue strengthening Denmark’s data science ecosystem through fellowships, training activities, and collaborative initiatives.

We’re delighted to welcome Beatrice and Philip to the DARA team. They will be supporting our work across communications, public affairs, and events – contributing to DARA’s mission to advance excellence, interdisciplinarity, and international collaboration in PhD education.

DARA has hosted the first Community of Practice meeting with PhD education leaders across Denmark’s natural, technical, and medical sciences. Representatives from five Danish universities came together to start shaping a shared vision for the future of PhD training. Read more here.

We are proud to announce DARA’s first nine PhD fellows — talented researchers embarking on ambitious projects across the natural, technical, and medical sciences. Their work marks an important step in DARA’s mission to support interdisciplinary research and world-class PhD training. Learn more about the PhD fellows and their exciting research projects here.

We can announce that the two calls PhD Fellowships: Winter 2025/26 Call for thematic PhD Fellowships within AgriFood and the Call for “Open” PhD Fellowships is closed for applications and we are starting to review the applications we have received.

On behalf of the board, Susanne Mandrup warmly welcomes DARA’s first PhD fellows and reflects on the academy’s vision and ambition to support excellent, interdisciplinary research. Read the full welcome message here.

The Ecosystem Committee held its inaugural meeting on 3rd December, bringing together experienced experts from across the scientific fields covered by the academy. Read more here and meet the members.