“In my opinion, the establishment of DDA has been of vital importance to the recruitment of a new generation of researchers and clinicians within the field of diabetes, where Denmark, since the discovery of insulin in 1921, has had a leading role worldwide.

Thus, University of Copenhagen, along with Joslin Diabetes Centre, affiliated to Harvard University, and Banting and Best Diabetes Center, affiliated to University of Toronto, are considered as pioneers within this research area.

To maintain this position, DDA has aimed to initiate activities in terms of grants, courses and conferences that attract young researchers within the field of diabetes. In particular, I would like to emphasize the residential summer schools for PhD students, where the students, besides attending lectures of high scientific value, get the opportunity to interact with acknowledged international scientists in an informal setting that may lead, and have led, to collaboration and exchange visits at leading universities abroad.

This kind of learning environment is not that common and is highly appreciated by the international lecturers, who happily attend these courses year after year. Further, DDA has contributed to a renewal of the traditional format of scientific conferences consisting of a long array of lectures with few questions from the audience.

To increase the outcome of these meetings, for the young researchers in specific, DDA has implemented a separate session, where young researchers work in groups to prepare and solve scientific issues proposed by senior experts. This has given the young researchers the opportunity to get to know each other beforehand, and prepared them for the topic of the given meeting.

The execution of these activities involves an extraordinary effort by DDA’s administrative staff, who managed to solve this with great excellence, and evoked excitement among participants and organisers.”

Professor Emeritus Jens Høiriis Nielsen, University of Copenhagen