Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung - European University Association

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Thomas Estermann, Enora Bennetot Pruvot
European Universities Diversifying Income
Streams: an overview of the study
Thomas Estermann, Enora Bennetot Pruvot,
European University Association
This paper gives an overview of the study “Financially Sustainable Universities II:
European Universities Diversifying Income Sources” led by the European University
Association between 2008 and 2011. It describes how European universities are cur-
rently financed, and looks into the sector’s expectations for future evolutions. It also
analyses the many different barriers currently preventing universities from pursuing
additional income streams and the possible drivers for stimulating income diversifica-
tion. To address different funding challenges, including often declining public invest-
ment, universities need to proactively design their own strategies. Future financial
sustainability depends not only on reliable, sufficient public funding, but also on the
autonomy and support necessary to successfully explore complementary funding
options.
1 Introduction
Financial sustainability is one of the key challenges for Europe’s universities today.
Despite the tremendous diversity that exists in Europe, all higher education systems
are increasingly under pressure due to rising student populations and mounting costs
of teaching and research activities, and therefore face the same challenge of designing
sustainable funding models.
Since 2006 the European University Association (EUA) has been conducting ambitious
research on the topic of financial sustainability. The first study on this topic explored
the development of full costing in European universities and the ways to improve their
capacity to identify better the full costs of all their activities. Maintaining an appropri-
ate degree of diversity in the funding structure is another important step for universi-
ties to achieve financial sustainability. This was the focus of the EUDIS project which
EUA undertook with its partners HUMANE (the Heads of University Management and
Administration Network in Europe), the Bavarian State Institute for Higher Education
Research and Planning, and the University of Bologna.
Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung, 33. Jahrgang, 2/2011