By David Williams
3 February 2011
Universities in England will lose £940m in funding in the next financial year, with big hits to capital budgets, teaching and one-off grants.
The Higher Education Funding Council for England announced its final funding allocations for next year yesterday.
The settlement showed that for the 2011/12 academic year, £255m will be cut from short-term funding, on top of £685m being stripped out of general funding – a 9.5% cut on the 2010/11 budget of £7.2bn.
Capital funding will be slashed by 58%, or £223m, while teaching funding is to be cut by £180m – or 4% - in 2011/12.
But cash for widening participation and improving stay-on rates will be retained, while a £150m fund to encourage collaboration between universities is to be maintained in cash terms.
Research funding is to be cut by £17.4m. This represents a 1.1% cut to be met by prioritising ‘internationally excellent and world-leading research’.
There will also be new cuts for the current academic year, because it overlaps with the 2011/12 financial year. A total of £162m will be cut from teaching budgets, while £27.6m of research funding will be lost.
Hefce chief executive Sir Alan Langlands welcomed the move by ministers to ring-fence overall funding for science and research. He pledged that future funding would be focused on excellent teaching and research, and supporting the economy.
Langlands added: ‘This is a challenging financial settlement. We are attempting as far as possible to support a smooth transition for all institutions to the new student finance arrangements which will take effect in the 2012/13 academic year.’
Universities minister David Willets said 2011/12 was a ‘year of transition for universities’, and suggested that raising tuition fees would enable institutions offering the best courses to thrive.
But Sally Hunt, general secretary of the Universities and Colleges Union, said it was ‘yet another slap in the face for a sector already reeling from huge cuts’.
‘The government is in complete denial if it thinks that UK universities can deliver more for less. This perverse logic needs to be put in its place once and for all. At a time when both developed and developing countries are investing in their higher education systems… our government seems intent on doing the opposite.’
