Efficiency, Effectiveness and Value for Money at Universities. A USTREM report

Since the economic downturn that followed the 2008 financial crisis, Europe’s policy makers and higher education institutions have been increasingly interested in the topics of efficiency and effectiveness in the academic context. Their growing attention was triggered by an increased focus on achieving value for money in terms of public expenditure, changing funding, governance and accountability frameworks, as well as by growing competition between higher education institutions and the evolving student body. Against this background, the USTREAM project2 partners set themselves an ambitious task to explore the concept of efficiency in a university context, to analyse the key drivers, enabling conditions and barriers to efficiency at universities, and to map system and institutional efforts to foster efficiency, effectiveness and value for money across Europe. The ultimate goal was to share good practices and to draft recommendations for European and national policy makers and institutional leaders.