Sir

Natural sciences faculties in Danish universities are threatened with large reductions in permanent staff. All recruitment of young scientists may come to a full stop, including the transfer of assistant professors to tenure positions, and many scientists in ‘permanent’ positions can expect to be fired. At the University of Copenhagen about 13 per cent of the staff are expected to be cut.

This is the result of the government budget for 1999. The funding of faculties is based on the number of students. But the support per student varies for historical reasons, without reflecting the costs of experimental work in natural science classes. As a result, the support for each student of natural sciences is markedly lower than that of students in agricultural sciences, medical sciences and civil engineering. The natural sciences have been unable to alter this budgetary arrangement, resulting in a build-up of debt during past years.

Although university professors are expected to divide their time equally between research and teaching, the budget from the state is determined by the number of students, independent of research activity. So a staff reduction of 13 per cent with an unaltered number of students will reduce the time devoted to research by 26 per cent. The faculties have so far protected research and maintained unaltered dimensions of the different science disciplines independent of the fact that some disciplines have many students, while others have comparatively few. Discussions between the Ministry of Research and the faculties have not resolved the inconsistency between budgetary planning and the teaching and research obligations of the staff. Likewise, discussions within faculties have not altered the balance between students and staff in the different disciplines.

The consequences of the cutback are arbitrary and chaotic for individual laboratories irrespective of their teaching load and international research reputation. Small laboratories with research of outstanding international quality tend to have a higher turnover of staff and more new tenure positions coming up and can, therefore, foresee a relatively greater reduction in staff. Some laboratories risk losing new research directions completely.

Many recent examples from all over the world demonstrate that political systems find it difficult to provide the investment and the long-term perspective required for high-quality research. The political focus is on management principles and short-term initiatives with an associated public interest which can keep the party in power and the minister in office. As a result, in the future university researchers may attempt to strengthen their contacts with the political establishment, become more visible in the media, and increasingly emphasize the short-term benefits of research rather than the need for long-term planning.