AUSTRIA

Austrian chancellor presents ‘Plan A’ for universities
Higher education funding in Austria is to be based more strongly on enrolment and performance agreements, according to a new paper submitted by the country’s Chancellor Christian Kern. Entry restrictions would be applied where necessary, although tuition fees are ruled out.His minister for science, research and the economy believes it could lead to a lowering of the dropout rate, a shortening of study time and an increase in the number of graduates.
Kern’s 'Plan A' calls for “a significant increase in the higher education budget aiming at 2% of gross domestic product”, although this is merely a reiteration of what both the government and parliament have long been urging for.
Increased funding would be used to extend capacities, improve the student-teacher ratio and enhance quality. However, Kern emphasises, all this would have to go hand in hand with general structural reform at the universities and, in particular, with enrolment-driven funding.
Kern calls for “better steering of student intake via public funding” and would also like to see better course guidance services.
Referring in particular to the traditionally overcrowded subjects with poor student-teacher ratios, he suggests that “contrary to the present situation, considering an annual increase in student enrolment, the number of study places could be transformed from a set minimum to a maximum set on the basis of the latest graduate statistics plus a respective dropout contingent”. Austria had 328,496 students in the 2015-16 winter semester.
Enrolment-driven funding would clearly imply entry restrictions for certain subjects. The Plan A proposal corresponds largely to concepts put forward by Universities Austria or uniko, the organisation of university rectors and vice-rectors.
Kern also envisages grouping bachelor study programmes, for example, with economics and humanities, natural sciences and medicine groups, funding of which would be decided on by public authorities. And he urges that more capacity be provided for “forward-looking subjects” such as mathematics, informatics and engineering. Here, his paper states a need for an additional 5,000 study places.
Kern, who is also chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Austria or SPÖ, rules out the introduction of tuition fees and calls for increases in student grants. And he would like to see more professionals without a certificate of higher secondary education enter higher education via part-time studies and prep courses.
Another aspect Plan A addresses is getting three of Austria’s universities into the top 100 world-wide. Here, Kern draws on Germany’s Excellence Initiative and its clusters of excellence.
His idea is to bring together top scientists to work on topics of special relevance to society. To facilitate this, universities would compete to form a total of 10 publicly funded clusters of excellence covering subjects also dealt with by a corresponding five start-up clusters. Four universities of excellence would emerge from this process that would be entitled to an “excellence premium” to fund their activities in the areas they specialise in.
Kern would like to see the administration of public research funding streamlined and have the research responsibilities of the higher education, infrastructure and agriculture ministries combined in a new research ministry that would also deal with applied research funding.
University research funding would be based more strongly on performance agreements. Plan A sticks to the government’s goal of earmarking 3.76 % of the budget for R&D.
Plan A has been given a warm welcome by uniko President Oliver Vitouch, who praises its “dynamics, visionary approach and emphasis on shaping future developments”.
In his New Year’s address to the rectors’ conference, Vitouch said: “Here in Austria, we are no longer content with winning skiing medals but also want to earn Nobel Prizes, Fields Medals, Turing Awards and the pendants of Pulitzer Prizes. We want to be able to get as good as the University of Utah or Arizona State University, or even the universities of Copenhagen, Oslo, Aarhus or Groningen.”
Vice-chancellor and Minister of Science, Research and Economy Reinhold Mitterlehner of the Austrian People’s Party, or ÖVP, emphasises the significance of the SPÖ’s U-turn on enrolment-driven funding. “This will enable us to lower the dropout rate, shorten study time and raise the number of graduates,” Mitterlehner maintains.
In contrast, Kern’s fellow party members organised in the Association of Socialist Students of Austria, or VSStÖ, refer to enrolment-driven funding as an “all-out attack on open and free access to higher education”, the latter being an achievement they attribute to the era of SPÖ chancellor Bruno Kreisky and that “Kern himself benefited from as a student and is now trampling on”.
Austrian Students’ Association Vice-chairperson Marie Fleischhacker warns that enrolment-driven funding must not result in entry restrictions.
Michael Gardner Email: michael.gardner@uw-news.com