The university is conducting a long-termed dismounting of the sciences, says dean at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Knut Fægri. The constricted budget of next year especially strikes his faculty.

2009-11-25 På norsk

In line with what rector Ole Petter Ottersen promised during the rector election campaign, the University of Oslo is setting aside 15 million Norwegian kroner in next year´s budget for the reinforcement of the study quality. This was decided when the university council passed the university´s budget for 2010 yesterday. Knut Fægri thinks that it will have an opposite effect for the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science.
– To the degree that study quality depends on resources, which the management of the university seems to think, I think the study quality by the faculty will be struck, says Fægri.

– Gives into dismounting

The 15 million is taken from all of the faculties and is distributed after ratios between study points and employees. This will provide the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Social Sciences more money, while the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences are the losers in this distribution.
In addition, the amount that goes to scientific equipment is reduced with 10 million kroner. Fægri says that the research council also moderated the national resources to scientific equipment.
– This will strike the part of research that is closest to the research based teaching, because that is granting that is normally used for routine instruments for daily operation. Both these measures fit neatly into the line of the university´s long-termed dismounting of the sciences, says Fægri.

Positive to earmarking

Mari O. Mamre, student representative in the university council and vice-president in the Student Parliament, thinks it´s sad that the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, that usually earn few study points per student, won´t receive extra means to fix this.
– At the same, we have to remember to see it in the light of their having a high employee/student-density, and should manage to carry out such goals within the normal granting. The other faculties do not have the resources to do that, she says.
She is very positive to the earmarking, since it puts a new focus on study quality.
– We have only one earmarking in the grants, and the money goes to study quality. I think the rector and the management shows effort and will to lead, and that they take the students seriously, says Mamre.

Cuts 60 million overall

The cuts and the regulations are presented because the university has been forced to reduce the budget with 84 million kroner next year. For several years the university economy has been tightened, as a cause of the high costs that have increased immensely compared to the governments grants. 60 million of the savings are to be taken as flat cuts over all the units and faculties. The rest of the cuts are done on special areas, like the introduction of administrative IT-systems, free start packages for researchers and scientific equipment.
Mamre says that the flat cuts are a toxic mix with the earmarking, and wishes that more of the cuts were done on the special areas. She still joined the decision of the board since a promise was made that no cuts in the faculties would be carried through until 2011.

Melike Leblebicioglu • Translated by Ingrid Brubaker