Ministerial Committee on Economic Policy: Government to provide universities with EUR 100 million in capitalisation

The Government will make a one-off investment in the future by providing universities with capital. On the basis of research impact criteria, EUR 33 million will be allocated to universities in autumn 2020 and, on the basis of fundraising that entitles universities to receive match funding from central government, EUR 67 million in autumn 2022. The Ministerial Committee on Economic Policy supported the principles for implementing the capitalisation in its meeting on 12 June 2020.

The capitalisation is based on the decision made by the Board of Directors of the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra on 19 December 2019 to allocate a one-off contribution of EUR 100 million for the capitalisation of universities. Sitra will pledge a donation, on the terms in the decision, to central government through the State Treasury, for generating financial investments for the capitalisation of universities in the manner decided by central government.

The central government capitalisations to universities will be carried out in two phases. In the first phase, universities will be capitalised by EUR 33 million on the basis of the research impact criteria in autumn 2020.  The distribution ratio produced by the criteria for calculating the research funding ratios of the 2020 imputed funding model for universities will be used in the allocation.

In the second phase, universities will be capitalised by a sum that is 2.5 times higher than the private capital raised by the universities themselves, up to a maximum of EUR 67 million, in autumn 2022. The main rule is that central government match funding is allocated between different universities in relation to the private capital raised by the universities. Central government match funding received by an individual university may not exceed EUR 11 million. Owing to the cap on the maximum amount of match funding, the capitalisation rate may not exceed 2.5 for other universities. If the universities are unable to collect donations entitling to central government match funding totalling EUR 26.8 million or if some of the resources cannot be allocated due to the cap on match funding, the remaining capitalisation resources will be distributed among the universities on the basis of the research impact criteria used in the first phase.

The period during which private capital collection will be taken into account under the central government match funding process is from 15 June 2020 to 30 June 2022. The fundraising principles that qualify for central government match funding are similar to those that were applied in the university fundraising campaign carried out between 2014 and 2017.

Inquiries: Tapio Kosunen, Director General +358 295 330 440, Ministry of Education and Culture