Performance Funding of Swiss Universities - Success or Failure?: An ex-Post Analysis

In the past decade, based on a change in paradigms in university policy, performance funding on a cantonal and central state level has been introduced in Switzerland: the universities have been granted higher autonomy, combined with global budgets and contract management by the responsible authorities (cantonal authorities). At the same time, the allocation of the central state subsidies, which is only of a secondary nature, has no longer been based on input but on the achievement of targets (new University Funding Law from the year 1999). The introduction of these new performance-oriented elements – higher autonomy combined with global budgets and contract management and target-oriented allocation of central state subsidies led to intensive, sometimes controversial debates in the different parliaments and media. This work examines whether - and to what extent - these new incentives have led to behavioral changes at the universities. To test this, the work has analysed the development of efficiency - as an input/output comparison in the university production process - and that of effectiveness - as the degree to which targets formulated in the University Funding Law are achieved.