Abstract:

The current system of university funding in Slovakia has shown to be insufficient and there is an urgent need for a reform. In the presented paper, an international project under realization is introduced. Its aim is - based on a thorough analysis of the funding system of universities in selected European countries - to identify effective models for university funding and find the optimal model for application in Slovakia. Within the project, traditional desk research methods were used to analyse relevant documents and find solutions leading to reducing universities’ running costs. The first results of the research show that e-universities could represent an effective, cost-saving model but due to the limits of that type of universities and their inapplicability in fields such as medicine, pharmacy, etc., they cannot be considered an optimal solution. In the paper, based on experiences from abroad, also effective and ineffective examples of university funding are discussed and the authors point out the importance of not relying only on state funding but finding alternative resources both in the public and private spheres, contributions from students, but also universities’ own business activities.

Keywords:

University funding, reform, Slovakia.