UCPH hit the hardest by year-on-year funding cuts

The numbers show that there will be substantial cuts, which, in my opinion, will have negative consequences such as poor teaching, firing of staff, closure of education institutions and so on.

Mette Reissmann

Education minister Søren Pind has released the figures on how much the government’s annual two per cent savings requirement on all higher education institutions will cost individual universities. That the University of Copenhagen (UCPH), as Denmark’s largest university, is to cut the most, comes as no surprise. But the jump down to number two on the list might surprise you.

By 2021, the planned total cuts will amount to DKK 909.2 million for UCPH (with approximately  38,600 students). Number two in cuts is Aarhus University with approximately 36,500 students, which ‘only’ loses DKK 628.6m.

The figures can be seen in a response to the Social Democrat member of parliament Mette Reissmann by Minister of Higher Education and Research Søren Pind (V) on 26 September. Mette Reissmann is on the parliamentary education and research committee.

Cuts continue to 2021

The cuts are part of the so-called re-prioritization contribution, which has been in effect since 2016. The cuts to funding should originally have only worked until 2020, but the Danish government has now proposed in its budget for 2018 that it be extended to 2021.

UCPH rector Henrik Wegener has to the University Post called the budget proposal “unambitious” and “with no belief in research and innovation as the path forward“. Both business lobbies, the Confederation of Danish Enterprise and the Confederation of Danish Industry, write in an article on news site Information that the time is right to cancel re-prioritisation contribution.

Total savings: DKK 1.9 billion

Søren Pind’s statement also shows that the total cuts to higher education funding will total DKK 1.9 billion in 2021. Mette Reissmann says to the University Post that she wanted to ask Søren Pind the question because she wanted to be informed about what the financial consequences of the re-prioritisation contribution was:

“The numbers show that there will be substantial cuts, which, in my opinion, will have negative consequences such as poor teaching, firing of staff, closure of education institutions and so on,” says Mette Reissmann.