Financial model
New financial model at the faculty entails more clear incentives
The faculty's new financial model focuses on research activity and educational performance. The aim is fewer but stronger incentives.
In continuation of SDU's new financial model, the management group at the Faculty of Science has just adopted a new financial model for the faculty's distribution of education income and research funds.
- I am very much looking forward to working with a simple budget model, which is based on our core tasks: education and research, says Dean Marianne Holmer.
The education income at the faculty consists of two sources of income: one fixed and one variable. The fixed income includes a basic grant and an education grant. The variable consists of student FTE income from students passing their exam activities. The fixed grants amount to approx. 25 % of the faculty's total education income.
When SDU sends the fixed grants to the faculty, the faculty distributes half of the education grant to the departments proportionally based on the previous year's student FTE's.
Before the student FTE income is distributed to the faculties, 30 % is withheld for the SDU Central Administration. The remaining 70 % is distributed between our departments based on the previous year's performance.
This means that the more students who pass an exam activity, the more education income goes to the respective department, as we also know from the previous budget model.
Ordinary research funds
When it comes to the distribution of research funds, there are also sources of income that move from SDU to the faculty: The fixed and the variable research grant. The fixed grant amounts to approx. 25 % of the total research grant.
The faculty keeps half of the fixed research grant, while the other half is distributed between the departments. Here, too, the distribution key will be based on the previous year's activities. In this case, it is the respective department's revenue from external research projects.
The complete variable research grant is distributed among the departments without restriction – again based on the respective department's revenue from external research projects the previous year.
The external research funds are not affected by the new model and 10 % of the project grant will continue to be paid to the SDU Central Administration for the time being. A clarification regarding the new project supplement is expected during the spring.
Fewer incentives
Thus, the new financial model at SDU and at the faculty is simpler than the previous one, as the distribution of both education income and research funds is exclusively performance-based (student FTE's and revenue from external projects).
In the past, sending out exchange students led to a financial reward from SDU, but this incentive has now been terminated.
Likewise, the employment of PhD students at a department entailed direct co-financing from the faculty, but as of now these must be financed locally.
Furthermore, BFI points are no longer instrumental in triggering funding from SDU to the faculty.