Organisation
Spending cuts and ‘low-hanging fruit’: What does this mean for you?
At the start of January, the Executive Board indicated in its blog that the first spending cuts will focus on ‘low-hanging fruit’. These are savings that are fairly easy and quick to make, and will save us around 2 million euros. The emphasis will lie on our basic funding and largest source of income, which we receive from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. However, in times of cuts, we have to look at how to make savings throughout the organisation. The following list of measures that we are taking has been discussed with our deans and operations managers. Although the approach regarding low-hanging fruit is not so much about financial policy but rather a call to the units to adjust certain expenditures, employee participation has been included in this.
Fewer external staff
We will look critically at hiring external staff. An important ground rule is the ‘Roemer norm’, which means 10% maximum of staffing costs can be on external staff.
Reduce use of external locations/catering
As of 1 May 2025 University Services Department is opening a desk where you can book internal spaces instead of external locations. The first savings have already been made by holding the strategic conference and several workshops at internal locations. To gain more insight, operations managers and controllers have been asked to report on the costs of external locations and catering.
Amended building opening hours
In addition to agreements reached in 2025, the costs of operating our buildings will have to be further reduced in 2026. We are therefore going to streamline the opening hours of our buildings. The main principles are: standardise the opening hours of teaching buildings; one teaching building per city to open longer for teaching and independent study spaces; possible closure of certain buildings on Fridays; and buildings to close for longer in the summer, for eight weeks instead of six.
Save on business travel overseas
We have agreed in our sustainability agenda on a 25% reduction of our ecological footprint by 2027. Although the trend was decreasing, more staff flew again in 2024. To provide more transparency about booked flights, staff must book through Uniglobe. This ensures our sustainability reporting is complete and makes it easier to monitor travel expenses.