Earlier this month, several organisations representing the Swiss research sector held a joint press conference to decry proposed cuts to the country’s education and innovation budgets. It came after Switzerland’s Federal Council opened a consultation on a ‘relief package’ comprising almost 60 measures designed to reduce annual federal expenditure by around CHF3 billion (£2.6 billion) by 2027. The measures included cuts to the budgets of research funding organisations and reduced support to higher education institutions.
The cuts are part of a recent pattern of governments across Europe proposing reductions to research funding. It’s a trend that has science organisations worried, with several warning that long-term damage to the sector could be caused by short-term actions taken as governments attempt to balance the books.
Switzerland’s main funder of basic research, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), stands to lose over CHF400 million per year, which the organisation said ‘would mark an unprecedented setback for Swiss science’. According to the SNSF, the cut – representing around 10% of its budget – would result in 700 fewer research projects being funded each year, while the organisation would be unable to fund around 2000 academic positions, with early-career researchers the most likely to be affected.
‘For the first time in its history, the SNSF might also have to cut funding for ongoing research projects and suspend successful funding schemes for years,’ the organisation added.
Meanwhile, the Swiss innovation agency Innosuisse, which provides financial support to small businesses pursuing applied research, is also facing a 10% cut in government funding – a reduction of just over CHF30 million a year. The organisation noted that this would reduce its capacity to support Swiss start-ups, which already receive ‘very limited direct support’ in comparison to those in other countries.
‘Innosuisse is aware that a wide range of measures are required in order to ease the burden on the federal budget and is prepared to bear the consequences responsibly,’ the organisation said in a statement on the relief package’s potential impact. ‘However, a 10% reduction constitutes a deep cut. In terms of scope and implementation, attention should be paid to ensuring that the opportunity costs do not exceed the cost savings and that innovation promotion is able to respond flexibly to the rapidly evolving environment.’
ETH Domain, a group of Swiss federal research institutes including ETH Zurich and EPFL Lausanne, is facing annual cuts of CHF78 million, or 3% of direct government support. While the Swiss government suggests the funds be recouped through increased tuition fees, the ETH board says that higher fees would not be enough to cover the planned cuts. As a result, it would be forced to reduce its academic activities.
A wider trend
Earlier this month, the French government agreed cuts of €930 million (£770 million) to the country’s research budget, including a €100 million cut in funding to the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
Meanwhile, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands are other science powerhouses that have proposed or enacted cuts to research funding in recent months. In some cases the moves have prompted waves of protests from universities, students and academics and scientific societies.
Enora Pruvot, the deputy director of governance, funding and public policy development at the European University Association (EUA), says that while many research institutions across Europe have benefited from increased public funding in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, we’re now seeing ‘more and more proposed cuts to annual budgets’.
‘There’s been some decent increase in public funding, whether core public funding or competitive, and you can also see the effect of NextGenerationEU funds … but we really have this sentiment that this phase is now coming to a close, and we’re opening a new phase of fiscal consolidation that’s going to be very much at the expense of the sector,’ she says.
Pruvot explains that the EUA recently surveyed around 170 universities across the continent on their expectations for the coming years, with the majority expecting a best-case scenario in which public funding stagnates and many others predicting a decline in funds. Many universities are hoping that declining public investment can be offset by partnerships with business and increased EU funding, but Pruvot warns that these measures are unlikely to make up the funding gap.
‘With regards to European funding, we do see that there’s a big gap between the expectations and what’s possible. And also, when you hear the narrative right now in Brussels, it’s not necessarily favourable towards [increased funding for] university research,’ says Pruvot. ‘So we’re trying to warn our members and also policymakers that you cannot bet on this substitution effect – it doesn’t work because the amounts are absolutely unrelatable to one another.’
Long-term effects
According to Pruvot, many governments view research as an easy area of spending to cut because there are few immediate consequences that affect the general population. ‘Of course, the effect over the medium and long term is really problematic,’ she says.
It’s generally accepted that research spending brings economic benefits, so one consequence of cutting R&D budgets is the diminished returns on that investment. The Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences estimates that the proposed CHF400 million cut to the SNSF’s budget is likely to cost the Swiss economy at least CHF1.2 billion.
And Pruvot points out that while cuts to research spending can be enacted quickly, it can take a very long time to reverse the effects of those cuts. For example, she points out that some countries are still ‘adjusting for inflation, not necessarily back to 2008 levels’ after cutting science budgets in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
‘A strong lesson out of that phase was that it’s very quick to harm the university sector, and it takes a very long time to actually to recover,’ she adds.
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