Funding

Funding provides information on the amount of public resources provided from the state budget for the HEI or PRI, or part of it, in the period under evaluation (2014-2019).

The amount indicated in the funding information for the institution or part of the institution is indicative. It has been obtained by converting the total amount spent on funding the institution or part thereof into the number of staff listed in the application submitted for the specific research area (for the institution or part thereof in question). The amount thus corresponds to the number of employees of the applicant in the specific research area for the period 2014-2019. The conversion of the funding into the actual number of employees of the team submitting the application for the institution or its component was based on the available information on the funding of HEIs (from the breakdown of grants published on the Ministry’s website) and PRIs (from the annual reports of the individual organisational units of the PRI). HEIs and PRIs also provided the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport with information on the funding of their constituent parts (faculties, institutes, etc.) on request.

Example: A public university applying to three research areas (‘Mathematics’, ‘Law’ and ‘Languages and Literature’) has been funded with a total amount of EUR 2 000 000 over the six-year period of the periodic evaluation (this amount being the total for each of the years 2014-2019). This public higher education institution declared 10 staff members who fulfilled the conditions for inclusion in the periodic evaluation in the research area ‘Mathematics’; 10 staff members who fulfilled the conditions for inclusion in the periodic evaluation in the research area ‘Law’; and 20 staff members who fulfilled the conditions for inclusion in the periodic evaluation in the research area ‘Languages and Literature’ in its application for periodic evaluation. Dividing the total amount of funding for this public university by the total number of staff members included in all periodic evaluation applications submitted by this public university (i.e. applications submitted in all three scientific fields mentioned above), we find the allocation per staff member (included in the periodic evaluation) over the six-year evaluation period (i.e., €2 000 000 / 40 staff members = €50 000 per staff member included in the periodic evaluation). In order to find the individual allocations for the three applications for periodic evaluation submitted by the institution concerned, we need to multiply the sum of EUR 50 000 by the individual numbers of staff included in the applications for periodic evaluation in each research area. Therefore, a periodic evaluation application submitted for the research area ‘Mathematics’ will receive EUR 500 000 (EUR 50 000 x 10 staff) for the evaluation period (2014-2019); a periodic evaluation application submitted for the research area ‘Law’ will receive EUR 500 000 (EUR 50 000 x 10 staff) for the evaluation period (2014-2019); and a periodic evaluation application submitted for the research area ‘Languages and Literature’ will receive EUR 1 000 000 (EUR 50 000 x 20 staff) for the evaluation period (2014-2019).

It is therefore clear that these indicative amounts are not the amounts actually allocated to specific departments, as it is assumed that if a department with staff in several of the research areas assessed received an amount for science and research, it distributed this amount equally according to the number of staff in the research area, which may not correspond to the actual amounts allocated, as departments have the right to decide independently within the framework of academic self-government on the distribution of resources from the state subsidy for science and research. Together with information on the number of staff, information on the amount of funding for a particular HEI or PRI (or parts thereof) for the years 2014-2019 should increase the predictive value of the resulting quality profiles.