The four main departments of the Institute are the Astronomical Observatory, the Department of Geophysics, the Niels Bohr Institute and the Ørsted Laboratory. Most experimental work takes place at CERN, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and DESY. The main areas of research are:
* Theoretical Particle Physics and Field Theory * Experimental Particle Physics * Theoretical Nuclear Physics * Experimental Nuclear Physics * Physics of Nonlinear, Complex and Biological Systems