The European Universities Association, (EUA)  ( www.eua.be )  has been monitoring the effects on higher education in Europe arising from the evolving economic crisis since 2008,  and in a recent report highlights the differential impact from country to country. Whilst impacts reflect to some extent the impact of the crisis on different national economies,  universities have been affected at different stages of the crisis.  Some univiersities were impacted as early as the beginning of 2009 while others were impacted later, and in a few cases hardly at all.  Overall, institutions in most countries report being faced with uncertainty and expect further cuts, and some countries demonstrate that cuts are likely to have a deep re-structuring effect on higher education systems.

The EUA monitoring has been able to identify 6 main categorieswhich show the effect of the economic crisis on public funding of universities across Europe.  These range across university mission, teaching, research, autonomy and private funding. 

On average teaching seems to have been more affected than research.  This change is of particular concern at a time when economic downturn has increased demand for higher education.  Strategies which are beginning to emerge in some countries involve Universities  managing reduced funding by closing some departments or merging institutions.

There have been impacts on research.  In some countries expenditure has been reduced but, in contract, in others, expenditure commitments have been maintained or expanded.  Some countries have increased programmes aimed at promoting innovation.  Funding authorities seem to be  increasingly using competitive funding programmes as the basis for allocating research funds.

Overall the changes described in detail in the report reveal not only that public funding of universities is diminishing but also changing in the nature and form in which it is available.  Increasingly there are conditions attached to funding and growing accountability requirements.  In some countries the economic crisis has prompted an intense debate about the role of public funding,  and the balance to be struck between public and private funding and student financial contributions. At the same time, the report points out that the economic crisis has also impacted on the private and phalanthropic organisations' capacity to support higher education institutions.

All in all the report provides a very measured account of the different levels and nature of impacts of the economic crisis across European universities. It is striking how varied these are.