Instituttleder Ørjan Totland. Foto: Eivind Senneset, UiB
Dear all,
First of all; many congratulations to Gyri, Mari and Alistair on new FRIPRO projects. It is fantastically good and impressive. I am very happy for you and BIO.
Secondly; the department council adopted a long-term budget for the period 2025-2029. It shows that in 2029 our deficit is down to 6 million. Although there is a lot of uncertainty about our economic development, this is very gratifying and it shows that we are on the right track and that the hard and challenging work we have all done in recent years has yielded results. There are some important assumptions in the long-term budget: 1) we still have job freezes throughout the period, 2) we have budgeted to increase our income through credit production, student completion and new fully funded study places, 3) we have budgeted for a cautious increase in income from externally financed projects, 4) we have budgeted for a very careful increase in the basic allocation, 5) operating expenses are kept to a “reasonable minimum”. Although there is always uncertainty in such a long-term budget, I believe it is realistic. But it therefore assumes that we do not increase our salary expenses, that we manage to reap the benefits of the new funding model (which has an even greater emphasis on our educational activity) and that we manage to maintain our activity on external projects at the current level. These will be important processes in the years to come.
To suck; this will be the last BIO news before the summer holidays. Many thanks to all of you for your very good efforts for the community at BIO during the spring semester. It is a great pleasure to observe everything you do for the good of BIO, our students and for the research and dissemination that contribute greatly to society’s knowledge needs.
Have a really good summer vacation. I look forward to seeing you again in August.
Hilsen Ørjan