Europaeum. Europe’s university budgets: The Europaeum update – February 2012. Europaeum, Oxford, 2012. Pages: 7.

In the past couple of months, Europaeum released the updated version of its 2010 report on the budgets of higher education programmes in countries where the organisation’s member institutions are based. The up-to-date report evaluates the impact and effects of government austerity measures on 13 European countries. It assesses the extent to which universities in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal and the UK were affected by the latest cuts in public funding.

The authors conclude that the economic downturn has, on the whole, had a negative short-term impact upon public higher education programmes. European universities are being affected in many different ways and the differences are set to be magnified over the coming years. However, caution must be exercised when estimating the future evolution of the current situation as there are many variables that can influence how a cut actually affects an institution.

The following countries have seen no cuts or even increases in higher education funding:

• Finland (+12 %), Switzerland (+3 %), France (+3 %), Germany (+ 2%) and Poland (+ 1%).

The following countries have seen major cuts in higher education funding:

• Italy (-20%), Portugal (-20%), the Netherlands (-20%), Spain (major cuts expected), UK (-40%), Czech Republic (-4%)

Europaeum