The New Carlsberg Foundation has provided funding for five new post-doc positions to be established in a collaboration between Danish museums and universities. With these donations the New Carlsberg Foundation aims to strengthen the connection and the exchange of knowledge between art research and everyday work at the museums.

These recent donations are a part of the New Carlsberg Foundation’s major focus on art research, which has a total budget of DKK 37.5 million (initially involving 15 PhD positions and now additional 15 post-doc positions). This investment in art research aims to enhance the cooperation between museums and the relevant research environments.

Theory and practice combined
‘The new researchers are formally employed by the universities, but in practice, they carry out much of their work at the museums. And from the outset, the projects have been defined to match the needs of the museums,’ says Professor Morten Kyndrup, the New Carlsberg Foundation. He adds,

‘For a number of years, now, the connection between academic art history environments and the art museums has not been very close. Far too many have remained either museum people or university people. Few have crossed over, and much valuable knowledge has therefore not been exchanged. We need to avoid a situation where the museums are isolated from the current, international research agenda. Where the universities develop into theory factories, far removed from practice, and where the communication efforts that take place in museums every day ‒ and thus the audience for the art ‒ are seen as uninteresting.’

The five current donations are going to new post-doc positions at:

- Esbjerg Art Museum 
- ARoS 
- Fuglsang Kunstmuseum 
- VejleMuseerne (The Vejle Museums) 
- Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen and the Museum of Religious Art, Lemvig (partnership) 

The post-doc projects will be announced openly as vacancies in the coming months by the university within the relevant academic field. Thus, the university acts as the employer, while the actual working tasks are divided between the museum and the university.

2015 grants
In the latest round, in 2015, the following museums/institutions were awarded a post-doc scholarship: Thorvaldsens Museum, KØS, Kunsten, Brundlund Palace, Louisiana, Kunsthal Aarhus, Designmuseum Danmark and the J.F. Willumsen Museum.