All PhD defences must be publicly available. When you submit your PhD dissertation, you need to write a short press release in Danish and English about you PhD project.
Use the form press release and sent it to graduateschoolhealth@au.dk three weeks before your public defence.
The press release is aimed at newspaper publications of names and events (“navneredaktionen”) and should not be confused with a news release about your results.
The purpose is to inform the public:
The Graduate School of Health sees to that the press release reaches relevant newspapers.
Furthermore, the press release will be attached to the announcement of your defence in the faculty calendar at health.au.dk
If you conduct your defence (partly) online, please make sure to include a link to the defence in the press release, or add a name and e-mail address on a person who can send interested parties a link for the defence.
It can be challenging to describe complicated research projects in a way that is relevant and easy to understand for the average newspaper reader – particularly in this short form.
You should write in layman’s terms
The press release about your PhD project should be understandable to the average newspaper reader. Therefore, you must write the text in layman terms and consist of a very brief summary (no more than approx. 200 words) of the research you have carried out.
It may be helpful to ask yourself “what”, “how” and “why” when you structure the text.
If you have already published your results in a scientific journal, you should include the main points and briefly outline the expected effect or benefit.
You should not include results that have not yet been published unless your main supervisor agrees.
The press release should also include
If you are not able to write the release in Danish, you need to get it translated.
