European Union

Monday 27 April

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Some voters in Australia’s compulsory voting system purposefully spoil their ballots, but a new assessment suggests that most just don’t understand the complex system and make mistakes. 

How Tokyo is leveraging defense equipment transfers to shape the Indo-Pacific order. 

The press conference scheduled for Wednesday at 11.00 has been cancelled.
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

The press conference scheduled for Wednesday at 11.00 has been cancelled.
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

The press conference scheduled for Wednesday at 11.00 has been cancelled.
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

The press conference scheduled for Wednesday at 11.00 has been cancelled.
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Image from Education under Attack / Save Schools in Ukraine: https://saveschools.in.ua/en/

Kateryna Suprun

In the increasingly turbulent economic environment facing many European higher education institutions (HEIs) (Pruvot et al., 2025), performance-based funding (PBF) remains a popular instrument for allocating at least part of core public funding (European Commission, 2023). Traditionally, PBF involves governments rewarding HEIs for meeting specific objectives – an approach often assumed to improve university performance (Kivistö & Mathies, 2023). Yet a key question is: does steering by incentives actually change how HEIs work, or does it merely encourage them to look good on paper?

In my recent article (Suprun 2026) published in the Policy Reviews of Higher Education, I draw on the strategic response framework (Oliver, 1991) to establish if the PBF policy recently adopted in Ukraine has made HEIs change their internal practices. Guided by interviews, surveys and document analysis, I explore the lived experiences of 22 public HEIs between 2020 and 2022 and invite their reflections on the revival of the PBF policy in 2024 amid a protracted military crisis. This approach allows tracing how Ukrainian HEIs have responded to the PBF policy and to which extent they have internalised its expectations.

 

From Policy Design to Institutional Practice

The PBF policy implementation in Ukraine tells a story of policy relevance shaped by political power struggles. Formulated against a backdrop of vested interests, an inflated higher education network, and a historical reliance on student numbers, the PBF policy aimed to make public funding transparent, apply uniform performance indicators, and strengthen better performing HEIs. It was introduced during the policy window of 2020, facilitated by the political turnover, became suspended with the outbreak of the all-in Russian war in 2022, and returned to the policy agenda in 2024, after yet another change of government.

The PBF design has undergone changes in each year of its active implementation, signalling an incremental transition pathway, political volatility and war-induced adjustments of the performance metrics. The resulting fragmented and contested implementation of the PBF policy – often associated with ‘gaming the results’ (Mathies et al., 2020) – calls for its analysis from the perspective of HEIs as street-level bureaucrats tasked with its day-to-day execution.

The strategic responses of the consulted HEIs towards the PBF policy closely correspond to their gains or losses from its implementation: winners tend to comply, while others engage in compromise and manipulation. PBF beneficiaries find it easy to follow the PBF rules: they perceive the PBF targets consistent with their university goals and view the PBF logic beneficial for institutional effectiveness. At the same time, their reported dependence on PBF is modest – ranging from just a few percent to no more than one third of core budget, – supporting the argument that high-performing universities advance their work regardless of PBF incentives (Shea & Hara, 2020).

In contrast, loss-exposed HEIs feel coerced towards PBF, consider its metrics constraining, and experience uncertainty in their financial prospects. Paradoxically, these are precisely the institutions that rely most heavily on PBF disbursements, with some depending on them for up to 70% of their public funding. As the organisational responses of universities are clearly differentiated, the question is if those receiving larger incentives are more inclined to steer by performance internally.

 

How Universities Adapted Internally – and Where They Did Not

The data indicate changes taking place in most of the engaged Ukrainian HEIs, with several clearly emerging trends. PBF beneficiaries are particularly active in introducing internal performance structures and funding models that mirror or adapt the system-level metrics. The reported changes to institutional policies and practices concentrate primarily on the performance areas of external research funding and internationalisation. While the universities adversely affected by PBF have attempted to become more performance-driven, their efforts were reversed with the temporary halt of the national policy in 2022 – unlike those of PBF-winning HEIs who continued with performance practices.

The PBF policy has also produced a few unintended consequences, hindering institutional changes. Limited coordination among national authorities has triggered audits of universities, making them comply simultaneously with the PBF policy and its preceding regulations on student-staff ratio and pay scales. Confronted with these contradictory demands, many HEIs continued to base their financial planning on the outdated model of historical funding.

The one-size-fits-all design of the PBF model, favouring research-intensive and internationally-exposed HEIs, has too yielded frequent grievances on the part of the financially vulnerable HEIs, lacking research capacity and global networks. Finally, the zero-sum logic of the PBF policy and restricted financial autonomy have discouraged or disabled some HEIs to act on the performance targets.

 

Implications for Policy and Practice

The case of Ukraine shows that HEIs adapt internally when they feel aligned with policy objectives, capable of introducing changes and engaged to the decision-making process. Albeit counterintuitively, the PBF policy volatility appears to function as a double-edged sword: while universities are caught in a perpetual turbulence, frequent revisions also reduce the likelihood of opportunistic behaviour.

Importantly, most consulted HEIs recognise the relevance of the PBF mechanism also in times of protracted war. However, their testimonies highlight unresolved inquiries beyond the current design of the PBF policy: do policy-makers acknowledge the value brought by HEIs through their third mission activities? And if so, how can they be measured and incentivised in a transparent and objective manner?  Whether future iterations of the PBF policy will be able to address these challenges remains to be seen.

 

Kateryna Suprun is a Doctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, Finland, and a member of the Higher Education Group. Her research explores policy implementation in higher education, with a focus on performance-based funding models and Ukraine. She has previously worked at the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine on higher education and digital transformation policies, alongside emergency humanitarian planning and resource mobilisation. She has also held various roles under the World Bank, European Commission, and European Higher Education Area frameworks.

 

Bibliography:

European Commission. (2023). Final report of the study on the state and effectiveness of national funding systems of higher education to support the European universities initiative. Volume I. Publications Office. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2766/885757

Kivistö, J., & Mathies, C. (2023). Incentives, rationales, and expected impact: Linking performance-based research funding to internal funding distributions of universities. In B. Lepori, B. Jongbloed, & D. Hicks (Eds), Handbook of Public Funding of Research (pp. 186–202). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800883086.00019

Mathies, C., Kivistö, J., & Birnbaum, M. (2020). Following the money? Performance-based funding and the changing publication patterns of Finnish academics. Higher Education, 79(1), 21–37. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-00394-4

Oliver, C. (1991). Strategic Responses to Institutional Processes. The Academy of Management Review, 16(1), 145. https://doi.org/10.2307/258610

Pruvot, E., Estermann, T., & Popkhadze, N. (2025). Financially sustainable universities. State of play and strategies for future resilience. European University Association. https://www.eua.eu/images/Funding_briefing_final.pdf

Shea, S. O., & Hara, J. O. (2020). The impact of Ireland’s new higher education system performance framework on institutional planning towards the related policy objectives. Higher Education, 80(2), 335–351.

Suprun, K. (2026). Implementation of the performance-based funding policy in Ukrainian higher education: impact on institutional behaviour? Policy Reviews in Higher Education, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322969.2026.2622677

The post Chasing Indicators or Changing Practices? Ukrainian Universities under Performance‑Based Funding appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

China and the U.S. are racing to establish a permanent presence on the moon with the explicit mission of mining – and exploiting – lunar resources.

Que la musique ait servi à tout, de tout temps, et notamment au pire, on en avait déjà une bonne idée. Depuis les fifres et tambours des champs de bataille, jusqu'aux splendeurs de Nick Drake utilisées pour vendre les voitures Volkswagen… Mais que la CIA se soit servie de la tournée du magnifique artiste Louis Armstrong pour tenter de faire diversion au scandale d'un coup d'État au Congo, ça, on l'aura découvert dans le documentaire musical passionnant, « Soundtrack pour un coup d'État » de Johan Grimonprez.

- Contrebande / États-Unis, Musique, documentaire

The bloc remains Southeast Asia’s preferred hedge against U.S.-China rivalry, but the countries that matter most to the EU appear to trust it the least.

Many rights and benefits in the Indian polity are attained through membership of a group, rather than as an individual citizen of India.

Journalists are invited to a press conference with rapporteur Nils Ušakovs following the vote on Parliament's guidelines for the 2027 EU budget.
Committee on Budgets

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Journalists are invited to a press conference with rapporteur Nils Ušakovs following the vote on Parliament's guidelines for the 2027 EU budget.
Committee on Budgets

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Journalists are invited to a press conference with rapporteur Nils Ušakovs following the vote on Parliament's guidelines for the 2027 EU budget.
Committee on Budgets

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Parliament’s president and the co-rapporteurs on the multiannual financial framework (MFF) will brief journalists after the plenary vote on Parliament’s negotiating position.
Committee on Budgets

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Parliament’s president and the co-rapporteurs on the multiannual financial framework (MFF) will brief journalists after the plenary vote on Parliament’s negotiating position.
Committee on Budgets

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Parliament’s president and the co-rapporteurs on the multiannual financial framework (MFF) will brief journalists after the plenary vote on Parliament’s negotiating position.
Committee on Budgets

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Rifts are opening up among supporters of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., as an impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte moves forward.

A Kidal, dans le nord du Mali, dimanche 26 avril, après avoir totalement encerclé les forces russes et l’armée malienne, les indépendantistes touareg du Front de libération de l’Azawad (FLA), appuyés par la composante touareg du Groupe de soutien de l’islam et des musulmans (GSIM), ont annoncé qu’« Un accord a été conclu pour permettre à l’armée et à ses alliés d’Africa Corps de quitter le Camp 2, où ils étaient retranchés ».Cette retraite sans gloire était d’ailleurs la seule issue pour le contingent russo-malien, tant sa position était devenue intenable. Désormais  attaquée sur plusieurs fronts, la junte au pouvoir, a une priorité vitale : éviter la chute de Bamako.Or, c’est pour avoir refusé, comme la France avant elle, de prendre en compte la réalité ethno-raciale régionale et les rapports de force millénaires, que la Russie vient de subir ce très grave échec militaire dont les conséquences vont être considérables pour l’équilibre de toute la zone sahélienne. On se reportera à mon livre : Les guerres du Sahel des origines à nos jours.
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