News
Challenges despite strong economy When summing up the events of 2019, it is predominantly positive: everything is moving in the right direction. But there is a concern about how the university will rectify the high level of retained capital. This is the opinion of the University Board, which also endorsed the proposal to support the Faculty of Humanities. FÖRRA ÅRET plaLast year,
the University of Gothenburg planned a small deficit, but had a surplus of 38 million SEK, which led to an increase in retained capital by the same amount. – On the whole, everything is very positive. The University of Gothenburg is growing, we are attracting more students, more national assignments and, in addition, the external contributions are increasing, says CFO Peter Tellberg, who emphasizes that the surplus in this context can almost be seen as a calculation error in relation to the university’s total turnover of 6.8 billion SEK.
THE MAIN explanation for the improved financial situation is a large increase in revenue from education. In eight years, the University of Gothenburg has not achieved its funding agreement targets set
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GUJOURNAL MARCH 2020
by the government. Last year, the so-called underproduction was only minus 5 million SEK, versus minus 82 million SEK in 2018. – IT IS PARTLY a technical
effect of the delay of registration in Ladok, so it is difficult to estimate. Even before the spring term, however, we could see that the number of registered students was increasing, which is a clear break from the trend. Another explanation is that external research grants increased by 4 percent to a total of 2 billion SEK. The increase is a result of foreign research grants, not least EU grants. At the end of the year, the University of Gothenburg’s retained capital amounted to 1.26 million SEK. The vast majority, over 800 million SEK, is tied up in research projects that have not yet been completed. Measured in relation
to costs, the IT Faculty has the largest share of retained capital, followed by the Faculty of Science and then the Sahlgrenska Academy. – When the entire academic sector has retained capital of up to 12 billion SEK, it is difficult to justify large investments when there are other areas of society that are in more urgent need. The Swedish National Audit Office has also repeatedly criticized the universities for saving too much money. LAST YEAR, expenses increa-
sed by 3.1 percent compared with the previous year. Payroll expenses account for the greater proportion of the increase. In 2019, slightly more people were employed, in total 45 full-time positions. However, the increase is very small. – It is a significantly lower rate of increase than we have seen in recent years, says Pe-
ter Tellberg. At four faculties the number of employees has decreased, at three it has increased and at the Sahlgrenska Academy it remains unchanged. Given the retained capital, there should be scope for greater investment, especially in research. ALTHOUGH THE financial situ-
ation is stable, Peter Tellberg points out that there are significant differences between faculties and between institutions, but also between different research groups. The University Administration is in a difficult position. Last year they had a deficit of 5 million SEK. – Prior to 2020, the University Administration received no compensation for price and wage increases, nor for the increase in the cost of essential systems that the entire university uses. Two of the reasons are greatly increased
