Head of the Policy Office at DTU - Department of Policy Relations

Do you have experience in setting direction, building buy-in and ensuring progress? Would you like to help develop and professionalize the support to DTU’s top management? And can you navigate confidently in dialogues with external stakeholders as well as in a complex organisation? Then you may be the Head of Office we are seeking for the Policy Office in the Department for Policy and Relations (APR) at DTU.

A central leadership role close to DTU’s top management

As Head of Office you will be a key player in the department's newly established, closely knit leadership team. You will lead and develop the office’s professional expertise, deliverables and staff and will have the opportunity to shape the dialogue with DTU’s political stakeholders as well as central strategic and organizational agendas. You will take a central role in ensuring that the management support is prepared, coordinated and followed up with a clear anchoring in the organization.

You will become a close leadership partner and strategic sparring partner for the Director of APR and will have the opportunity to influence the department’s overall strategic direction and priorities. The Director has the overall responsibility, while you actively contribute with professional perspectives and proposals for the development of the strategic agendas.

You will have independent responsibility for the Policy Office’s daily management and task execution and for translating the shared direction into concrete priorities and deliverables as well as ensuring progress in the agendas the office is responsible for.

The leadership task

As Head of Office you should be able to set a clear direction and goals for the office, while at the same time fostering collaboration and coherence across the organization. You must create engagement and buy-in through involvement, trust and active knowledge sharing among employees and in the organization, and ensure progress and clear results in the activities defined in the department’s action plan. This also includes responsibility for coordination and systematic follow-up on management decisions.

You must be able to lead both upwards and downwards. As a sparring partner for the Director and the Directorate, you should contribute to clear and solid decision-making foundations, while setting direction for staff and creating the framework for high professional quality, development and accountability.

You should build a strong professional environment with room to test new solutions and learn from experiences, and ensure well-being, skills development and a well-functioning working environment characterized by humor and strong community. At the same time you will develop workflows and competencies in an administration undergoing change, where new technological possibilities, including AI, are applied wisely and responsibly in daily task execution.

About the Policy Office

As Head of Office you will have personnel responsibility for 10 staff and 2 student assistants and the opportunity to shape an evolving office. In autumn 2026 the office will be expanded with new areas of work within governance, compliance, risk management and cross-cutting coordination of management decisions. You will play a central role in integrating and developing the new areas and creating coherence across the office’s tasks.

The Head of Office will be responsible for the following tasks

• Leadership and Board Support: Support the board, the executive management and the directorate with decision proposals, meeting preparation, policy notes and analyses, and quality assurance of material, data and processes.
• Political advocacy and external relations: Support dialogue with authorities, politicians and interest and business organizations.
• Strategy, planning and follow-up: Coordinate budgets and action plans, annual reporting and strategy follow-up, including development of indicators and follow-up on results and impact.
• Agenda-setting events: Planning and support for the directorate’s participation in the Folkemødet and the organization of education- and research-political events, including an annual top meeting.
• Governance, compliance and risk management: Develops and strengthens governance, ensures systematic follow-up on decisions and handling of compliance and management-relevant risks.
• Other secretariat and administration tasks : Secretarial support for internal and external committees and councils, processes related to doctoral theses, research evaluations, university elections as well as administration and management support in relation to selected funds.

Qualifications

We are looking for a unifying leader with political acumen, organizational judgment and strong communication skills. You have solid experience with executive support close to top management in a larger public or politically led organization and can translate complex issues into clear decision-making foundations. At the same time you have experience with political advocacy, government dialogue as well as governance, compliance and risk management, and you achieve results through clear direction, collaboration and structure.

DTU offers

You will hold a central leadership position at an internationally recognized university with high professional standards, strong ambitions and an important societal mission. Close to DTU’s top management and board you will create coherence, quality and progress in decisions with significance for the university’s development. You will lead skilled and engaged staff and have the opportunity to further develop the Policy Office as professional support for the rectorate, the executive management and the board, as well as good opportunities for your own leadership development.

Salary and terms of employment

The positions are 37 hours per week and you will be employed as Chief Consultant with personnel responsibility. Salary and terms of employment are in accordance with the state academic professionals’ collective agreement.

Expected start date is 1 December 2026 or as soon as possible. The workplace is DTU Lyngby.

Application and contact

We must receive your application no later than 17 November 2026 and we will call for interviews on an ongoing basis. Open the link "Apply now" where you fill out the application form and attach a motivated letter, CV and relevant documentation.

If you are curious to know more about the position, you are welcome to call the Director of the Department for Policy & Relations, Camilla Mørk, at 2246 9201.

The position is organizationally located in the Department for Policy and Relations and reports to the department’s director.

Applications received after the application deadline will not be considered.

All qualified applicants regardless of age, gender, disability, race, religion or ethnic origin are encouraged to apply for the position. As DTU conducts research in critical technology, with special rules for security and export control, there may be an open-source background check of qualified candidates for the position.

DTU – For the benefit of society since 1829

DTU is one of Europe’s leading technical elite universities. With research and education at international top level, we create solutions to the major societal challenges of our time and contribute to securing Europe’s global leadership in sustainable technology development. Since H.C. Ørsted founded DTU almost 200 years ago, our mission has been the same: We develop and apply natural and technical science for the benefit of society. DTU has 13,800 students, 1,600 PhD students and 6,500 staff.

We operate in an international environment and have an inclusive, developing and informal work culture. DTU has campuses across Denmark and in Greenland and collaborates with the best universities in the world.