Rector Väänänen Visited the University of Tartu for a Discussion on Funding and Cooperation
About fifteen rectors and vice rectors from the Baltic Sea region gathered at the University of Tartu on Monday, 25 August 2014, to discuss and exchange experiences on university and funding reforms as well as cooperation.
Rector Kalervo Väänänen at the University of Tartu's Rectors' Roundtable.
Rector Kalervo Väänänen of the University of Turku gave a speech at the Rectors’ Roundtable event, which was organised for the rectors and vice rectors from the University of Tartu’s partner universities. The topics of the discussion included the ways to maintain a balance between the funding of universities, need for university reforms, and cooperation, among other things.
Rector Väänänen opened his speech by recounting the university reform in Finland and how the recent economic difficulties have decreased universities’ funding and changed the funding basis. He continued by describing two ways how the universities can balance the decreased state funding in the future.
– Either we increase income from other sources or decrease spending. In Finland, we are definitely in the position where we need to pick up the second alternative, said Väänänen.
As options for decreasing costs, Väänänen suggested merging different institutions or units or carrying out a functional merge where the universities have joint operations and activities, such as courses, departments and infrastructure. Väänänen highlighted the importance of collaboration as a way to alleviate the economic difficulties that the universities are facing as the state funding decreases.
However, the financial side is not the only positive aspect about collaboration between universities. As an example, Väänänen used the University Consortium of Pori, which belongs to both the University of Turku and Tampere.
– The most important message from our experience is that the main point is not decreasing the spending but rather that we are able to improve the level of education and research activities, said Väänänen.
According to Väänänen, this is one way to respond to the society’s needs and expectations.
– There is a very strong belief in the society that the universities are the key motors for the future development.
Watch Rector Väänänen’s speech at the Rectors’ Roundtable.
Text: MR
Photo: UT