Funding for Which Mission? Changes and Ambiguities in the Funding of Universities of Applied Sciences and Their Research Activities

Abstract

This chapter discusses funding of research in universities of applied sciences, which were originally created without a research mandate, and thus their funding mechanism did not automatically include resources for research. In fact, excluding research from UAS activities and funding was seen as a means to avoid increases in expenditures for higher education and thus to cope with the growth in student numbers without providing additional resources in the same proportion. The implication of this policy is that, when they began to develop research activities, UASs had to find additional resources, either from the state or from private sources, since their core budget was usually devoted only to educational activities. In almost all countries considered in this book, getting resources for research has been a major issue at stake in the development of research and, at least when the extent of research exceeds some threshold, resources can quickly become a limiting factor as competition for resources between education and research can emerge.