HEFCE announces funding for universities and colleges in 2011/12
HEFCE has announced the total funding available for universities and colleges for the financial year 2011/12. The key changes compared to the 2010/11 financial year are:
- Teaching grant cut by £304m (6.1%)
- Research grant cut by £69m (4.3%)
- Total capital grant cut by £204m (54.5%)
Some of the cuts fall within the last few months of this academic year. As far as the implications for Leeds are concerned, for the current academic year, this translates to the following estimated funding reductions:
- £2,450k for teaching (approximately 2.8% of core teaching funding)
- £618k for research (approximately 1.7% of core research funding)
In 2011/12, the core teaching grant is to be further reduced by 4.3% and an additional reduction of £17m will be applied to mainstream quality-related research (QR) funding. For Leeds this translates to the following estimated additional funding reductions:
- £3,675k for teaching
- £300k for research
Funding relating to Widening Participation (WP), and to parts of the Teaching Enhancement and Student Success (TESS) funding relating to improving student retention, is protected.
In cash terms, overall research funding available from the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) for the spending review period to 2014/15 will be maintained, although there will be a reduction in research funding via HEFCE in 2011/12 because of the Government's other spending commitments in this area.
HEFCE has indicated that from the 2011/12 academic year mainstream QR funding will be more concentrated on research classed as internationally excellent or world-leading, and that from 2012/13 QR funding will not be available at all for research classed as internationally recognised. The allocation of Higher Education Innovation Fund grants is to change in favour of better performing universities with an increase in the maximum allocation. This should result in additional funding for Leeds.
We have expected this level of cuts and the changes to funding since the comprehensive spending review last autumn and the BIS grant letter to HEFCE in December. We will be able to give you more information on how this financial settlement will affect us when we receive our individual grant allocation in mid-March.
Looking further ahead to 2012/13, there will be further cuts to the teaching grant, totalling £830m, as tuition fee income is expected to become the major source of funding. In preparation for this, HEFCE is to review all its funding methods and allocations. It will launch a consultation on this later in the year after the publication of the Government's White Paper on Higher Education, and we will let you know as soon as we have news of this.
Read HEFCE's funding announcement