Susan Weng Larsen Head of PharmaSchool
Associate Professor Susan Weng Larsen becomes Head of PharmaSchool, effective from 1 March 2024.
The new PharmaSchool leader has agreed to answer some questions on this subject.
What can you tell us about your own background and your career so far?
I graduated as a pharmacist from PharmaSchool, formerly known as The Royal Danish School of Pharmacy (Danmarks Farmaceutiske Højskole). My affiliation to PharmaSchool has existed throughout my academic career, where I have been Associate Professor at Department of Pharmacy since 2008.
I have always been very interested in student’s learning experience and teaching quality and I have contributed actively to development and teaching in several of our mandatory BSc courses. My commitment and engagement in the development of our educations led to membership in the Department’s educational committee, and later on, the Study Board for Pharmeceutical Sciences.
Over the past 8 years, I have held the position of foreperson for the Study Board. In this role, I have had the privilege of collaborating and interacting with our dedicated students, teachers, and heads of studies, heads of departments and faculties, administrative staff and our stakeholders.
What motivated you to apply for the position as Head of PharmaSchool? I’m passionate about strengthening PharmaSchool and our educational programs. I am highly motivated to continue, and also expand, my work in educational development from this new position. At PharmaSchool, there is a unique spirit and a sense of community, where employees and students are highly committed to the pharmaceutical field.
At PharmaSchool, we have integrated education and research across wide spectrum of disciplines, with drugs as our common focus. As Head of PharmaSchool I will have the opportunity to contribute to strategic development and branding of PharmaSchool’s educations and to establish a common direction for teaching and education across our two departments, Department of Pharmacy and Department of Drug Design and Pharmacology.
In addition, it is my ambition to develop and support positive, inspiring and inclusive study environments and working communities.
Our graduates from PharmaSchool possess highly sought-after competencies in health, medicines, Life Science industry and hospitals. What are your thoughts on this matter? At PharmaSchool we have a strong collaboration and ongoing dialogue with our stakeholders, which is incredibly valuable in the development of our educational programs. This dialogue has significantly contributed to ensuring that our graduates possess the competences in demand. Our interdisciplinary educations within the pharmaceutical sciences provide access to a wide range of career opportunities, which is highly attractive for our students.
I find it extremely motivating and meaningful that we at PharmaSchool can contribute to the development of the society by educating qualified and attractive candidates that are in high demand by the Life Science industry and Healthcare sector.
How do you envision their role in our future society?
With a growing Life Science industry and healthcare system under pressure, there is a significant need for the core competencies of our candidates. Our candidates are drug experts with a broad foundation of knowledge and a high level of competencies in development and use of drugs. This enables them to bridge different fields and further specialize in the areas that the future society demands.
At the same time, I see a world undergoing rapid transformation where skills in digitization and AI are crucial. Our candidates must be ready to recognize the potential and to apply these new technologies in the development and use of drugs. In addition, the integration of sustainability in the pharmaceutical world requires that our candidates develop a green mindset.
We are continuously working to develop our educations to secure that our candidates are well equipped to handle future challenges.