The Government will reinforce with 138 million euros the basic endowments of public universities and polytechnics in 2024, within the framework of the proposed State Budget (OE), the tutelage announced today.
According to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, which today issued a note to the media on the subject, this is an increase of 10.7% compared to the basic appropriations defined in the State Budget for 2023.
The tutelage points out that the increase pointed out, already communicated to higher education institutions and which will be debated in the discussion of the SB2024 proposal, “is a value higher than the current forecast of the Ministry of Finance, in view of the expected values for inflation in the year 2023”.
The note adds that the SB2024 proposal foresees that the budget of public universities and polytechnics will have a “growth of 5.3% compared to the adjusted allocation of 2023, that is, taking into account the reinforcement that occurred in July 2023, as this aimed to compensate higher education institutions for a structural increase in expenditure”.
According to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, the distribution of funds for 2024 “already reflects the formula provided for in the new financing model” of the institutions, whose “final version sought to incorporate the main results of the dialogue” with the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities (CRUP) and the Coordinating Council of Higher Polytechnic Institutes.
According to the Ministry, the new funding model presents “prospects of stability and sustainability” for higher education institutions.
The ministry’s note is released about two weeks after CRUP again refused the financial burden of integrating 1,400 precarious researchers into teaching or scientific research careers under a new program, without adequate reinforcement of public appropriations.
The program, to be coordinated by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), foresees the launch of two calls – the first with a thousand vacancies, to be held later this year, and the second, with 400 vacancies, to be held in 2025.
For the first three to six years (depending on the career), salaries will be co-funded by FCT and then fully covered by the institutions.
Claiming underfunding and lack of professors, universities have chosen over successive years to hire for teaching rather than scientific careers.