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    The Halving of the University Index is Being Compensated with a Lump Sum

    The staff organizations were expecting the Univerity index dictated by the University Law to come into effect again in the beginning of the year 2015, but the government decided to halve it. Increasingly large portions of the basic funding are coming under competition.

    There is an attempt now to compensate for the hole left by the halving of the index by a lump sum, which is about 11,2 million euros in size. This one-time compensation is not, however, equal to the returning of the index, because it will not have a permanent effect on the base funding.

    ”In the end, the University index was not returned, which is somewhat worrying”, Kalervo Väänänen, the chair of UNIFI and the Rector of the University of Turku, comments on the situation in Helsingin Sanomat on the 7th of September. In his view, it has been worksome to follow the twists and turns in the fate of the index.

    - I am glad that Universities have not been robbed of their money, and that the State funding of them is developing at a reasonable speed, commented the Minister of Education, Krista Kiuru, in the seminar of the Association of Finnish University and Research Establishment Staff (YHL) on the 19th of September.

    - The budgets of the Universities cannot, however, be built on a budget funding that keeps on growing every year. It is not among the traditional duties of Universities to collect money, but the model for collecting compensatory financing is under way at the moment, Kiuru added.

    In the budget proposal currently under consideration in the Parliament, the allocation of funds is as follows: 1,9 billion euros is to be directed at Universitied, whereas the funding for Universities of Applied Sciences would amonut to 862 million euros. According to the budget release of the Ministry of Education and Culture, the funding of Universities increases by 17 million euros and the funding of Universities of Applied Sciences by 3 million euros compared to the year 2014, This is without the transferral of the portion to be financed by municipalities.

    To extend working careers and to deal with the gridlock of applicants, the starting places in Universities will be increased by approximately 3 000 places during the years 2014-2017. This addition of starting places will be targeted on trades most in need of additional work force.

    The controversy among Universities on the additional funding to Aalto University, which gained a lot of publicity before the budget negotiations, ended up in a compromise: Aalto University receives slightly over 58 euros of addditional funding, but in line with the definition of policy agreed upon in 2008, this funding will be transferred for the competition between other Universities by degrees – next year, the sum will be 27 million euros.

    Funding for profiling throught the Academy of Finland

    The 319 million euros that the Academy is allowed to grant for various purposes includes as an addition also the 50 million euros transferred from the Universities to strenghten their profiling with financing they have to compete for. The decision on the transferral of this 50 million euros had been made already in the budget framework negotiations in the Spring. The Universitied were sent a sketch of the application directions for the profiling funds on the 5th of September, and responses were required with a hasty schedule by the 19th of September. There is to be a discussion on the matter on the 2nd of October and the call for applications will open in the beginning of November.

    The transferral of 7,5 million euros into the Government's new strategic research financing device has been acknowledged as a reduction in the funding of the Academy of Finland, as have the 20 million euros which have been reserved for adaptation savings. The granting of 18,5 million euros for research infrastructure projects has also been proposed.

    There have been proposals that the decisions on the new stategic research funding should amont to 55,6 million euros at the most. The launching of these decision processes are, however, seriously lagging behind the intended schedule due to difficulties in appointing the Strategic Research Council. The Council of State was due to appoint this Council during the summer. The issue was already on the agenda of the general meeting of the Council of State on the 28th of August, but it was withdrawn before the meeting. The new Government of the Academy of Finland was appointed in the meeting, however.

    text Kirsti Sintonen

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