The new academic year is well underway, and we look forward to all that is to come. At the same time, there are also concerns ahead. Before the summer holidays, we informed you about the financial challenges we face as a university. With rising costs due to inflation and other uncertainties about our income, this topic requires extra attention.
We want to share the current state of affairs with you and ask you to join us in taking action to keep our organisation financially healthy.
Ongoing challenges
Since our last update, we have a clearer picture of our financial situation. We recently adopted the new collective labour agreement, which means a considerable salary increase for employees, but it also substantially strains our budget. Not all additional expenditure is compensated by the national government. It also looks like inflation will continue for a while, also because energy prices remain somewhat higher due to ongoing unrest in the world.
National elections are coming up, which means uncertainty about the influx of international students and future funding of higher education may persist for a while. On both topics, we, together with other universities, are lobbying vigorously, to emphasise the value of internationalisation, and to ensure stable and adequate funding.
With this in mind, it is certainly a challenge to ensure that we remain a financially healthy organisation so that we can continue to make choices based on our values, our mission, and our priority areas.
Making choices and actively steering
The current situation demands that in the current year and in 2024 and beyond - for which we are now drafting our budget - we need to make clear choices in what we do and do not do but, also actively steer on spending and income.
We have already taken several measures UT-wide to maintain our financial position. Service departments and faculties are actively managing the registration of project hours and the use of leave hours, vacancies are critically (re)considered, material costs are critically examined, and we are striving to create a healthy balance between academic and support staff.
In the coming months, we will continue to seek for opportunities to better our financial position, both at of the faculties and service departments and the university as a whole. Smart and critical choices are needed to optimally deploy our resources where they will have the most effect.
What you can do
The challenges we face require everyone to contribute:
- Make sure you register your billable and project hours timely and fully, so that we don't miss out on any income and always have an up-to-date overview of the situation;
- Use your leave days and register them properly and timely in AFAS. Besides the fact that we think it is important for you to take a breather and relax from time to time, too much accumulated leave in our accounts negatively impacts our financial position. Taking leave is, of course, always done in consultation with your manager.
- Be prudent on the expenses you make on behalf of the UT and always critically examine their necessity. Seek advice when in doubt to see whether alternatives are available.
- Be especially critical of the need to hire external services and new staff.
- Make the most of opportunities to generate additional income from assignments for third parties or subsidised education and research.
By actively managing our income together and saving on our expenses, we can keep our organisation financially healthy and continue our impactful work. We are confident that we can successfully navigate together in the coming months to maintain a healthy financial perspective.
