By Kristian Serge Skov-Larsen
ksl@adm.au.dk
If you study the government’s reconstruction plans, budgets and committee reports in an attempt to find out exactly how much money the Danish universities are being asked to save over the next few years, the chances are that you’ll end up feeling dizzy and thoroughly confused.
The verdict passed on the plan by Universities Denmark in a new note is “Not exactly straightforward;” and the Director of Aarhus University, Jørgen Jørgensen, professes himself to be entirely underwhelmed by all the different and highly confusing reports concerning the financial foundations on which the Danish universities are built.
“The truth is that there are still a lot of questions to be answered, so of course everyone is extremely dissatisfied with the current situation,” he says.
But next year’s budget can be drawn up anyway – based on the information received so far, says Jørgen Jørgensen.
“We don’t have any major problems in 2011. And we hope that the information we receive will become more precise as we draw nearer to 2012 and 2013, which will be very difficult and uncertain years to face,” he says.
The Danish GNP
According to the note issued by Universities Denmark, the cuts will probably be achieved primarily by removing funding from the Globalisation Pool in 2013 as well as requiring the universities to save DKK 125 million in 2012 and DKK 250 million in 2013 – plus ½, 1 and 1½ per cent of their turnover over the next three years.
However, one of the big unknown factors in the sum is the Danish gross national product or GNP. The government has promised to spend at least one per cent of GNP on research, and it is only possible to cut the actual funds allocated to the universities because the GNP is falling as a result of the finance crisis.
But if the situation improves the future may look brighter for the universities, and the planned cuts in 2013 might not be so bad after all, reports Jørgen Jørgensen.
“We assume that the government will abide by its promise of allocating one per cent of GNP to research, so the situation could change a good deal before we reach 2012 and 2013. At the moment there’s no need to panic, but it’s important to underline that what we have always wanted is the chance to plan our budgets for a time frame that matches the university’s core activities: long-term research and education. So I’m not happy about all this doubt about the precise level of funding in the years ahead,” he says.
