Adjustments to funding model proposed

A working group has suggested giving more weight to Finnish universities’ profiling strategies when determining the distribution of basic funding.

In a report reviewing Finland’s university funding model published on 7 December, the working group—consisting of rectors, government officials and funding agency representatives—suggested amending the weighting of several areas that determines the size of block grants given to universities.

The group proposed to increase the weighting for science policy objectives, such as devising profiling strategies and aligning institutional goals with government objectives, from 25 per cent to 26 per cent from 2017 onwards. This would help to boost the competitiveness of Finnish universities and to increase efficiency, the group said. The proposal follows encouragement from the government for universities to be braver in devising profiling strategies—an exercise aiming to get universities to set out a strategy for research and teaching areas. Universities should put more emphasis on strong academic areas while scrapping weaker ones so that scarce resources can be used more efficiently, the government has said.