Funding of the SFF scheme

personnel, representatives of the host institution are present during site visits and participate in discussions on co-localisation of centre personnel, provision of office space as the centre grows, administrative support and the host institution's strategy for the centre's research both during and after the centre’s period of operation. For centres that have gender imbalance among junior or senior researchers, another important topic is the centres' actions to improve this.

A very important part of the site visits is a discussion with students, PhD students and young researchers. Topics for discussion include their supervision, opportunities to discuss their work with senior researchers and international visitors, opportunities to work for shorter or longer periods abroad, the portfolio of courses that are offered to create a common platform for students from different fields, common meeting places, participation in centre meetings and international conferences, and whether they are offered advice on career planning.

SFF forum

SFF forum is an arena organised by the RCN, primarily for SFF centre directors, that takes place approximately once a year. In general, the centre directors have given presentations on solutions they have developed for their own centres, followed by discussions in groups. Some topics that have been discussed are how to prioritise the most promising research, how to nurture collaboration between researchers/research groups, how to develop a fertile environment for students and young researchers, the establishment of female role models in a centre, and experience with writing ERC applications.

In addition, the RCN has arranged meetings for the centres’ administrative leaders, again including presentations and discussions. Instructions for annual reporting to the RCN are always presented.

Annual reporting

Every year, the centres report on achievements from the previous year. The statistics presented later in this report regarding centre personnel, additional funding, publications and popular dissemination are collected from these progress reports. In addition, all centres create an annual brochure or ‘glossy’

report.

2.4 Funding of the SFF scheme

The SFF scheme was originally funded by yield from the Fund for Research and Innovation and is today funded by the Ministry of Education and Research. The scheme first received funding in 2002, concomitant with the start of the SFF-I centres. The funding was then expanded in 2007-2009 to give room for a second generation of centres (SFF-II). Since then, the SFF scheme has provided funding for two parallel centre generations, and today, it is generations three (SFF-III) and four (SFF-IV) that are active. Since the funding increase that accommodated two generations of centres, the funding of the SFF scheme has approximately kept pace with the observed increase in the full-time equivalent (FTE) cost in the Norwegian R&D sector (Figure 7). The FRIPRO budget is shown for comparison. SFF funding relative to the RCN’s total R&D expenditure²² has also remained more or less constant, at almost 4%.

22 RCN total ex. base funding to institutes.

25

Figure 7 SFF income. SFF income (mill. NOK) per year is shown as a solid red line. The red dashed line shows SFF income as a percentage of total RCN R&D expenditure (excluding base funding for institutes). Comparable numbers for FRIPRO (the RCN’s main researcher-initiated programme) are shown in yellow (solid and dashed lines, respectively). FRIPRO income includes Storforsk and YFF but excludes Fellesløft. The black dashed line shows the development of Norwegian R&D full-time equivalent (FTE) costs since 2003. R&D FTE costs are relative and calculated on the basis of data from NIFU Statistikkbanken.²³

Over time, the SFF scheme's expenditures have roughly mirrored its income (Figure 8). However, there is some variability in expenditure between years. Some of this variability has been caused by delays in centre spending, typically due to delayed hiring. However, the largest deviation (in 2012-2013) was due to a delay in the selection process in conjunction with SFF-III. The SFF scheme in 2018 had an accumulated surplus of NOK 32 mill. that was transferred to 2019. This was due to delays in centre spending in 2018.

The RCN's administrative costs related to the SFF scheme shown in Figure 8 include an estimate of salary expenses (except in 2018²⁴). The total administrative costs over the last five years have been on average 2% of the scheme's annual income, but have varied between 1.0 and 3.5% over the period the scheme has been in operation. For comparison, the RCN’s total administrative costs in 2018 made up 7.6% of its total income for the year.²⁵ Since the SFF scheme has infrequent calls and awards few and large grants, administrative costs would be expected to be lower than for many other RCN

23 R&D FTE cost is calculated on the basis of NIFU Statistikkbanken's data on R&D cost>labour cost>HEI, and R&D personnel (FTE)>total R&D personnel, HEI. Graph shows increase relative to 2003 and is normalised to the SFF income the same year.

24 Due to changes in the RCN's budgeting system

25 The RCN's accounted operating budget vs. total income (Forskningsrådets årsrapport for 2018) 0%

2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018

% of RCN total

mill. NOK

Year

FRIPRO income SFF income

R&D FTE cost (relative number) FRIPRO as % of total RCN R&D SFF as % of total RCN R&D

26 programmes.

Figure 8 SFF expenditure (stacked area chart) vs. income. The SFF scheme's expenditures in each SFF generation are plotted, for the period 2002-2018. Blue shading corresponds to different SFF generations. SFF income is shown in red (solid line). RCN administrative costs related to the SFF scheme are shown in green and include an estimate of salary expenses (except for in 2018).

Figure 9 shows the RCN administration's direct expenses. These are primarily related to peer review and committees involved in selection processes or evaluations. Hence, there is a clear five-year cycle that is also reflected in the number of administrative hours used. This cycle is caused by the five-year gap between calls and the fact that the mid-term evaluations also occur in a five-year cycle.

Figure 9 RCN administrative costs related to the SFF scheme. The RCN administration's SFF-related direct expenses (i.e.

excluding salaries) are shown in orange (solid line) for the period 2001-2018. Administrative hours are plotted in green (solid line) from 2011 and onwards.

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

mill. NOK

Year

SFF administration costs SFF-I SFF-II SFF-III SFF-IV SFF income (mill NOK)

0 2000 4000 6000 8000

0 1 2 3

2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017

Total hours

mill. NOK

Year

Administrative costs ex salary Administrative hours (2011-)

27