Universities see new skills budget as state interference

Several university leaders in Norway say the government’s proposed new Skills Needs Budget has the potential to violate the “arms length” principle that has traditionally seen universities make decisions about academic programmes while the ministry decides on policy and funding.

The budget is an attempt by the Norwegian government to address what Minister of Research and Higher Education Sigrun Aasland referred to at a representative meeting of the Norwegian University and College Council (UHR) at Molde University College in May as a “mismatch” between the education offered and society's needs.

She encouraged universities and university colleges to have clearer priorities and execute a division of labour among themselves.

“The challenge is to dare to prioritise what you should sharpen and become really good at and what you can do less of. The more you do this job, the less we need to do. I hope everyone will join in on this,” she told the rectors and directors.

The new Skills Needs Budget aims to ensure that the educational offers at universities, university colleges and vocational schools better meet society’s competence needs.

It will consist of an updated knowledge base about competence needs, priorities and indicators that tell institutions if they are on the “right track”, Aasland is reported to have said.

Anticipating accusations of government overreach, Aasland is quoted in Khrono as saying: “Yes, it is political control, but it is a healthier way to do it than jump-and-bounce solutions. The skills needs budget should provide predictability.”

Aasland’s arguments have solid substantiation from her ministry’s 15-member Norwegian Committee on Skill Needs which has been working since 2017 to analyse and predict future skills needs in Norway.

The work, led by Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir) director general Sveinung Skule, aims to form the basis for planning and strategic decision making of the authorities and the labour market, regionally and nationally.

It seeks to reduce costly dropout and misinformed choices in education, learning and work, plan for new skills owing to labour market transitions and factor in the implications of an ageing population.

It is about more clearly prioritising the competence that is needed, especially within technology and science and strengthening Norway’s competitiveness and technological sovereignty through investments made in research and higher education.

The Norwegian Committee on Skills Needs has systematised the sources of knowledge on Norway’s future skill needs. The work has to a large extent been based on national and international research and has already resulted in three Official Norwegian Reports, according to official sources.

Receiving the last of these reports in January 2026 Minister Aasland said: “What we have just heard from Sveinung [Skule] confirms that we are on the right track with the steps we have taken to meet the competence needs in Norway.

“In the Government's plan for Norway, access to competence and the development of technology and knowledge is therefore not a separate chapter but a common thread. Because, as Sveinung writes ... Norway must own its digital future – and we are currently implementing several measures that will contribute to precisely that.”

These measures include a focus on technology and science competence in higher education in terms of which the government has prioritised study places in ICT and in the state budget for 2026 we had set aside funds to create 100 new study places in quantum technology, 50 each for Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the University of Oslo (UiO), she said.

“We currently have a lower proportion of students who choose science and technology than our neighbouring countries.

“Therefore, together, we must make an even greater effort in the future and take even clearer steps to ensure the science and technology competence that Norway needs,” Aasland said.

Announcing the Skills Needs Budget, she said it would be a “dynamic management tool” that will be presented annually in the government's proposed state budget – which will also be based on more long-term priorities.

“Over the past four years, we have made a major boost to health education. We are educating a record number of nurses and doctors. In the coming years, we must do the same with science and technology. At the same time, we must of course ensure breadth and long-term perspective,” Aasland said.

“I strongly believe that the Skills Need Budget can thus become a very important tool for equipping Norway with the expertise we need to meet the major societal challenges in the transitional period we live in and I look forward to working with all of you on this.”

Lukewarm responses

Initial responses to the new skills budget, as reported in the media, have been lukewarm. “We'll let it roll around in our mouths and check if it tastes good,” was the initial reported response of Astrid Kvalbein, rector of the Norwegian Academy of Music.

Ragnhild Hennum, rector of UiO, put it this way: “I'm not against a competence budget, but it often becomes too short-term,” she told Khrono.

Hennum pointed to breakthroughs being made in stem cell research, popularly known as cell therapy. “When we started, many people perceived this as homeopathy, meaning just nonsense. We believed in it and now the results are coming. You would never have given money for this 15 years ago,” said Hennum in a comment to the minister.

UiO University Director Arne Benjaminsen also aired his scepticism about the competence budget as a management tool.

He pointed out that there are already a number of management documents, including the sector goals that are in the state budget, the long-term plan for research and education, the development agreements with management parameters and guidelines that are included in allocation letters.

“The competence budget must only be used as a knowledge base for the management documents that we already have,” he said.

’Confronting universities’ capacity to change’

Professor Mats Benner, a specialist on university governance based at Lund University and chair of the board of directors of the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) told University World News the new budget was “part of a broader trend of government returning to a more active role in education”.

“Decades of relative university autonomy in education planning have reduced the strain on governments and empowered universities but possibly also made university education strategies somewhat detached from societal needs,” he said.

He said the current geopolitical and geoeconomics turmoil and other factors such as rapid technological development and pressures on health and welfare services, “profoundly confront the capacity for change within universities”.

“With the competence [Skills Needs] budget, an intermediary between government expectation and university strategy could emerge, supporting universities to be more proactive and even experimental in their approaches to education strategy.

“There are risks of short-termism and politicisation, but the tide is shifting, towards a bigger role for government in education, in Norway and elsewhere,” Benner said.

Professor Emeritus Ivar Bleiklie, based at the University of Bergen, an expert on higher education governance and Norwegian higher education and research policies, since the early 1990s, and who recently published an article on external pressure on universities and academic freedom, told University World News the call by the minister for institutions to prioritise their educational and disciplinary portfolios was part of the ongoing push to boost science and technology programmes within Norwegian higher education and research.

But he questioned why such an “intrusive” budget measure as the Skills Needs Budget, which represents a “direct political interference in traditional autonomous decisions by academic institutions”, was being introduced.

“The government already has a considerable range of policy instruments at its disposal that apparently led to a very successful boost in health education lauded by the minister.”

Bleiklie said this reflects ongoing trends in higher education policies internationally: the promotion of STEM disciplines justified in terms of national needs and a willingness to interfere more directly with academic institutions in order to achieve political aims.