More donations to the University is, at its core, a good thought that will benefit the students. But who benefits from also counting research grants as donations?
A year ago, the University launched its fundraising campaign. With the tagline “For a better world”, the Vice-Chancellor at the time, Per Eriksson, hoped to, among other things, receive more means for research and scholarships.
The inspiration and idea for the campaign stems from high-ranking American universities. State funding does not cover it for a large university that wants to continue to expand with its sights set on reappearing in the top 100-list in international rankings.
Applying for external research grants is in and of itself nothing new. Doctoral students and researchers spend a considerable amount of work weeks each year on getting funds for their projects. It is tough and ungrateful work, which often results in rejection, or lesser portions than were envisioned. Now, a conflict between researchers and Donatorrelationer at the University has emerged. Here, you can read reporter Virve Ivarsson’s piece on how the fundraising campaign arrives at its result. Dontarorrelationer have been stepping on several researchers’ toes when counting research grants as part of their own results. The logic is simple. The bigger donations the University receives, the more market players are interested in showing goodwill and contributing.
At the same time, researchers spend several weeks of full-time work on applying for grants and do not feel supported by the University in their efforts. In addition, several organisations providing research grants have been surprised to see that their ear-marked money has been reported as a donation.
For you as a student, donations are at their core something good. More money to the University can, in the long run, lead to you or future students getting better laboratory rooms, more educated lecturers and additional scholarships to apply for. Education is costly, and considering that the state provided student allowance has not been raised since 1994, for example, it is good that the University is trying to get private players and the business world to contribute to academia.
The University and its board should take a long and hard think on how the efforts of individual employees are valued. To report ear-marked research grants as part of a fundraising campaign hurts relations with donators and researchers. More openness is required in order to show how these donations will help the University, and who actually provided the money. To build an infrastructure that supports researchers application processes for research grants would also yield results both internally and externally.
Carl-Johan Kullving
Web Content Manager
Translation: Carl-William Ersgård
