The Danish network for psychiatric education: building a national community for innovation in psychiatric training
- Ida Liebe Felsted
- Dec 13, 2020
- 5 min read
The Danish Network for Psychiatric Education (DNPU) represents a new national initiative dedicated to strengthening psychiatric education across Denmark. Formed in response to growing clinical, societal, and structural changes in mental healthcare, DNPU unites clinicians, educators, and researchers in a shared effort to advance training, foster collaboration, and ensure excellence in psychiatric practice.
Authors and founding board of DNPU |
Psychiatry faces growing clinical complexity, rising mental health burden, integration with somatic care, shifting societal expectations, implementation of technology, and an ongoing challenge of recruiting and retaining professionals. The latter has been a particular threat to the quality of pre-and post-graduate training. Following the introduction of a new set of objectives for specialist training in psychiatry (2016), it became clear how difficult it was for departments to implement and align the training program with the resources required to ensure structured clinical observations. This led to the establishment of a task force, that launched various initiatives across departments to improve the training program. These included the development of a new rating tool for structured clinical observation and feedback, a supervisor course specifically designed for specialist doctors, and a formation of a national network of selected senior consultants responsible for training, who were offered a master's degree in medical education. These initiatives along side the concurrent research in medical education within psychiatry in different parts of Denmark, paved the way, for a group of clinicians, researchers, and educators to join forces in 2023 to establish Dansk Netværk for Psykiatrisk Uddannelse (DNPU) – the Danish Network for Psychiatric Education.
Subsequently, DNPU was in September 2024 established as an interest group under the Danish Psychiatric Society with the purpose of advancing the development and research of psychiatric education in Denmark. In May 2025, the first formative general assembly was held, signifying the official launch of the network and The Danish Society for Medical Education (DSMU) formally recognized the network through the appointment of a DSMU board member to the DNPU Board. DNPU serves as a collaborative platform for physicians, other health professionals and medical education researchers who are involved in the implementation, innovation, or study of psychiatric education across pre- and postgraduate levels.
Vision and mission
DNPU’s mission is to promote best-practice interprofessional education and foster professional expertise in clinical psychiatry with the ultimate goal of improving care of psychiatric patients. The network aims to ensure that education in psychiatry remains relevant, inspiring, and tailored to the clinical realities of modern mental health care, as well as up to date with evidence in educational practice.
At the core of DNPU lies a belief in the power of collaboration: that strong networks and shared knowledge can elevate the entire field. By bringing together professionals from across regions and disciplines, DNPU strives to create coherent and clinically relevant solutions to the challenges of psychiatric training across professions.
Activities and collaboration
The network seeks to expand national cooperation through educational events, symposia, and meetings that connect clinicians, researchers, and educators. Initial activities have been webinars, LinkedIn presentations of ongoing projects and presentations among DNPU members and other relevant dissemination (i.e. news from the International Association for Health Professions Education Conference). It also supports the establishment of innovation and research projects that explore new approaches to psychiatric education and training. This has inspired the research application for a national educational platform, where it should be possible to disseminate online training programs for clinical interviewing, rating of psychopathology and the demonstration of psychotherapy for learners at different levels. Likewise, several clinical projects in post-graduate training have become nationwide.
DNPU’s work spans both adult and child-adolescent psychiatry, with an emphasis on enhancing competencies across all professional groups engaged in psychiatric care. The network also aims to contribute to anti-stigma efforts within psychiatry by highlighting psychiatry’s complexity, impact and contribution to overall integrated patient-centered care across health sectors. This includes debunking myths through education, promoting positive role models, integrating psychiatry early in training, and facilitating interprofessional dialogue.
Ultimately, DNPU envisions a strong national collaboration that ensures quality, alignment, and best-practice models in psychiatric education-strengthening recruitment, securing excellence in training, and enhancing diagnostic and treatment quality for psychiatric patients, including those with complex somatic needs. This collaboration also aims to promote fundamental psychiatric competence within somatic care.
Looking ahead
As Denmark prepares for the organizational integration of psychiatric and somatic healthcare services at the turn of 2026, the landscape of psychiatric practice and education is expected to undergo significant change. While this integration holds great potential for improving continuity of care for patients, it also poses new challenges for maintaining coherence within psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry as specialized fields.
In this context, sustaining a strong national focus on psychiatric education becomes more crucial than ever. DNPU recognizes the need to safeguard and further develop the quality and consistency of psychiatric training across the country, ensuring that professionals-regardless of regional or institutional setting-have access to the same high standards and best-practice innovative approaches to learning. This national alignment is essential to prevent fragmentation and to uphold a shared commitment to excellence in psychiatric practice.
Psychiatry offers unique educational insights that are highly relevant to the broader healthcare system. These include the emphasis on reflection, communication, holistic thinking, ethical and legal awareness and genuine patient involvement-meeting patients where they are and responding to their needs and wishes. Psychiatry’s long-standing experience with recovery-oriented approaches provides valuable perspectives on patient autonomy and empowerment, interdisciplinary collaboration as well as with relatives or other networks, and long-term care engagement. DNPU actively promotes cross-sectoral collaboration, engaging professionals from psychiatry, somatic, municipalities, and general practice to co-create educational solutions.
DNPU seeks to preserve the distinctive strengths of psychiatric education while contributing to the broader transformation of Danish healthcare. Through collective learning, cross-sector dialogue, and evidence-informed educational practice, DNPU aims to ensure that integration strengthens-rather than dilutes-the psychiatric field. The goal is to equip future clinicians across the healthcare system to deliver compassionate, competent, and person-centered care. This integration also offers an opportunity to enhance coherence across educational pathways, enriching both somatic and psychiatric training.
Our ambitions are bold - but so is our commitment and call to action to advance clinical psychiatry and reduce the preconceptions and misinformation surrounding it. Through DNPU, we aim to cultivate a community that draws on our collective strengths-one that fosters engagement, curiosity, and joy in educational innovation, research, and implementation. Together, we strive to ensure that psychiatric education in Denmark continues to inspire, connect, and elevate the field for years to come. We welcome educators, clinicians, and researchers to join DNPU and contribute to shaping the future of psychiatric education in Denmark. □
