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

YearNorwayDKSwedenFinlandOECDEU15 R&D resources R& D expenditure as part of GDP (%) R&D expenditure per capita NOK Public R&D expenditure as % of total R&D expenditure Industry R&D expenditure as % of total R&D expenditure R&D expenditure in HE sector as % of total R&D expenditure R&D data Nordic countries, OECD, EU15

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:Nok billion = € billion (2011/ 7 universities) Nok billion = € billion (2012/ 8 universities) Denmark University sector: Dkr billion = € billion (2011/ 8 universities) Dkr billion = € billion (2012/ 8 universities) Finland University sector:€ billion (2011/ 17 universities) € billion (2012/ 17 universities)

University lump sum funding: institutional figures Norway University of Oslo: Total budget 2011 Nok 6.6 billion = € 874 million (27,500 students)Government lump sum Nok billion = € 570 million (65%) Denmark University of Copenhagen: Total budget Dkr billion = € billion (38,000 students)Government lump sum Dkr 5,113 billion = € 688 million (66%) Finland University of Helsinki: Total budget (2010) around € 601 million (37,000 students)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