Budget top-up offered to Norwegian universities

Norway’s higher education institutions will get an extra 100 million Norwegian kroner (€10m) in funding for 2018, according to the budget agreement reached between government and parliament.

Half of the extra money is earmarked for digitisation at institutions, according to the deal agreed on 22 November.

However, the parliament successfully pushed for a measure aimed at reducing bureaucracy and increasing efficiency in universities. A 0.5 per cent annual cut to administrative funding, which has been in place since 2015, will be increased to 0.7 per cent in 2018.