Nordic University/HE Funding Policies
Higher Education Funding Seminar
ACUP, Barcelona
13 June, 2012
Peter Maassen, University of Oslo
 Background & Underlying Starting-points of Public
HE Funding in the Nordic Countries (focus on Denmark,
Finland, Norway)
 Public Funding of Nordic Universities:
Organisation/Models, Indicators and Figures
Policy Debates on HE Funding in Nordic Countries
Final Reflections
Background: Nordic HE Systems and their Performance
Nordic countries:
Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden; 25 million inhabitants
Around 150 HEIs
“Shanghai ranking”:
7 Nordic universities in top 100; (23 in top 500)
European Research Council (ERC), first 2500 grants:
Nordic researchers: 208 Grants (= 8-9%)
FP7 Cooperation:
At least 1 Nordic partner in almost 50% of all selected projects
Research Production/Impact:
all Nordic countries among most productive and highest impact countries
R&D data Nordic countries, OECD, EU15
Year
Norway
DK
Sweden
Finland
OECD
EU15
R&D
resources
R& D
expenditure as
part of GDP (%)
2009
1.81
3.02
3.62
3.96
2.33
2.05
R&D
expenditure per
capita NOK
2009
8 675
10 070
11 890
12 360
6 905
6 275
Public R&D
expenditure as
% of total R&D
expenditure
2009
47
28
27
24
28
34
Industry R&D
expenditure as
% of total R&D
expenditure
2009
44
60
59
68
64
55
2009
32
30
25
19
17
24
R&D
expenditure in
HE sector as %
of total R&D
expenditure
Traditional Policy Starting-Points of Public HE Funding
in the Nordic Countries
1. High Trust in Public Sector and State
2. Stability in Funding
3. Equality of Chances and Opportunities (Social Dimension)
4. Institutional Equality (Taboo wrt Setting Up Elite Units/Institutions)
5. Principle of ’Free’ Higher Education: no tuition fees for national (and
Nordic/EU students)
New Policy Issues wrt Public Funding of HE in the
Nordic Countries
1. Global Economic Competitiveness
2. Impact of HE on Society, and esp. on Innovation and Economic
Development, incl. Regional Development
3. HE System Effectiveness: Cooperation, Division of Labour,
Concentration
4. Lifelong Learning
Resource Allocation Mechanisms wrt Public
Funding of HE (Albrecht & Ziderman 1992; Jongbloed 2000)
1.Negotiated funding
2.Input-based funding
3.Output-based funding
4.Student-based funding
Nordic Public HE funding: shift towards output-based funding
Nature of output-based funding models
Norway:
Goal-oriented steering and funding of universities & colleges
Denmark:
Agreement-based steering and funding of universities
Finland:
Contract-based steering and funding of universities and polytechnics
Public Funding of Universities & Colleges: Norway
Organisation of Public Funding
 Stable/increasing public funding basis for HE
 No need for formal agreements/contracts
 Funding/steering organised around sector goals, activity goals and
steering parameters, e.g.
Sector goal 1:
• Universities and colleges shall offer education of high international
quality based on the forefront in R&D
Activity goal 1.1:
• Universities and colleges shall educate candidates with high
competence that is relevant from the perspective of society’s needs
Steering parameter 1.1:
• The number of quality first priority applicants per study place
Public Funding of Universities & Colleges: Norway (cont.)
Funding components and indicators:
Lump sum to universities
60% basic grant (education and research; historically determined)
25% education performance (open system)
Indicators:
1. number of produced ECTS credit points
2. number of incoming and outgoing exchange students
15% research performance (closed system)
Indicators:
1. PhD graduates
2. Research funding from EU (esp. FP7)
3. Research funding from Norwegian Research Council
4. Scientific publications
Public Funding of Universities & Colleges: Finland
Starting-point:
 Decreasing public funding basis for HE; stable funding basis for univ.
 Formal contracts
 Proposal to move from negotiated targets to indicators-based funding
 Funding/steering organised around indicators in 3 main parts:
education, research and science policy objectives:
From 2013 on:
Education (41% of lump sum)
15% Master degrees awarded by university
9% Bachelor degrees awarded by university
11% number of students completing a minimum of 55 ECTS
2% credits completed in open university and non-degree studies
1% number of degrees awarded to foreigners by the university
2% incoming and outgoing international exchanges in the university
1% number of jobholding graduates
Public Funding of Universities & Colleges: Finland (cont.)
Funding/steering organised around indicators in 3 main parts:
education, research and science policy objectives (cont.):
From 2013 on:
Research (34% of lump sum)
9% Doctoral degrees awarded by university
13% Publications (of which 10% international referred publications)
9% Competed research funding (of which 3% international)
1% doctoral degrees awarded to foreigners by the university
2% foreign teaching and research personnel
Other education and science policy objectives (25% of lump sum)
10% strategy-based funding
8% field-specific funding (2.75% arts univ & fields of art; 1.5% natural
sciences; 1.5% technology; 2.25% medical sciences)
7% funding for assigned national tasks
Public Funding of Universities & Colleges: Denmark
Starting-point:
 Stable public funding basis for universities; however, shift from lump
sum to competitive funding
 Formal agreements that are direction-giving, instead of contracts
 Lump sum in two parts: performance-based education part and basic
research component
Education (39% of lump sum)
 Taximeter allocation for bachelor and master student credit point
production
 Bonus for norm students
 Exchange students
 Allocation for small academic areas
 Stipends for non-EU students
 Funds from globalisation strategy for new educational forms
 Taximeter allocation for part-time students
Public Funding of Universities & Colleges: Denmark (cont.)
Lump sum in two parts: performance-based education part and basic
research component
Research (61% of lump sum)
 Basic lump sum for research, incl. PhD programmes
 Research-based government services
 Other purposes
University lump sum funding: sector figures
Norway
University sector:
Denmark
University sector:
Finland
University sector:
Nok 14.483 billion = € 1.919 billion
(2011/ 7 universities)
Nok 15.377 billion = € 2.038 billion
(2012/ 8 universities)
Dkr 16.588 billion = € 2.231 billion
(2011/ 8 universities)
Dkr 16.009 billion = € 2.154 billion
(2012/ 8 universities)
€ 1.839 billion (2011/ 17 universities)
€ 1.855 billion (2012/ 17 universities)
University lump sum funding: institutional figures
Norway
University of Oslo:
(27,500 students)
Total budget 2011 Nok 6.6 billion = € 874 million
Government lump sum Nok 4.298 billion = € 570 million
(65%)
Denmark
University of Copenhagen: Total budget Dkr 7.745 billion = € 1.042 billion
(38,000 students)
Finland
University of Helsinki:
(37,000 students)
Government lump sum Dkr 5,113 billion = € 688 million
(66%)
Total budget (2010) around € 601 million
Government lump sum around € 370 million (62%)
Total budget (2011) = € 648 million
Government lump sum (2011) = € 387 million
HE Funding Policy Debates
1. Impact (on society/economic development) of public investments in
HE/universities
2. Balance between strategic and ’free’ public funding
3. Increasing performance-based components in public funding of
higher education institutions (both education and research performance)
4. Move away from contracts and targets, to agreements and
indicators
Final reflections
1. Continuous high trust in public steering and funding of HE.
2. Increasing HE and R&D public budgets in Denmark and Norway, decreasing
budgets (esp. for polytechnic sector) in Finland
3. Performance and impact have become important components in public
funding of HE in the Nordic countries, but (for the time being) the emphasis is
still on academic performance
4. International components have become more important in public funding of
HE
5. Nordic governments want their top universities to be worldclass. Each of
the Nordic countries is taking different funding measures for realizing this.
Despite the differences, one of the common consequences is the growing
concentration of public R&D funding in limited nr. of universities