Kristina Kallas at the development conference: "How to ensure academic succession?"

Kristina Kallas, Minister of Education and Research

The opinion piece is based on the presentation at the University of Tartu development conference “A university for us, Estonia and the world”.

The public purpose of universities has undergone significant change since the end of World War II. The change, sometimes also referred to as the 20th-century higher education boom, has now placed universities in developed countries in a challenging financial and political position.

In the 20th century, the role of universities shifted drastically: from elitist institutions that educated only a tiny segment of society, they became large, wide-reaching institutions engaged in both science and research, as well as teaching masses of students.

At the end of the 19th century, there were about 80,000 students in Europe. In the age of industrialisation, the rise of the Humboldtian model of universities drove the massive spread of higher education. By the 1930s, there were 650,000 students in Europe, while the United States surpassed Europe with 1.1 million students. Women gained the right to attend university.

In 2023, there were 264 million students worldwide, and, excluding Africa, most countries directed nearly half of secondary school graduates to university.

With the expansion of higher education, the 21st-century Humboldtian universities represent only a tiny fraction of higher education providers – of the world’s 23,000 universities, only about a thousand are engaged in research that supports teaching. Research-intensive universities are global institutions that recruit and teach globally.

Universities amid crises

In recent years, these 20th-century trends have been impacted by headwinds, including budgetary pressures, demographic strain from shrinking and ageing populations, and the rise of populist political forces. These factors collectively suggest a future in which talented individuals may prefer the private sector over academia.

In developed countries, universities are confronted with societal and political shifts that can significantly influence their future. Anti-globalisation sentiment, inspired by the MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) movement, is exerting pressure on universities to abandon internationalisation. Universities are accused of prioritising global interests over national ones. The pressure manifests in reducing the number of international students and academic staff, suppressing values that transcend national interests, restricting academic freedom, and seeking to impose control over political power.

In addition, higher education in developed countries is facing a funding crisis, although not uniformly in all regions.

In the United States, universities are struggling with substantial cuts to teaching and research imposed by the federal government, as well as pressure from political leaders to refocus academic and research priorities. In the United Kingdom, the lack of funds is pushing some universities towards bankruptcy.

Similarly, central governments in the Netherlands and Germany have proposed budget cuts for universities. Meanwhile, many private universities in Japan and South Korea are closing their doors, as the ageing society has led to a sharp decline in student numbers.

The decrease in university funding and the growing political pressure are clearly being reflected in the research sector. Global knowledge networks are shifting, as research is becoming multipolar and a growing share of research activity is taking place in China.

Overall, it can be said that universities are currently facing three negative trends.

The first is the spread of anti-globalist societal attitudes that undermine universal human rights and values, and assert national interests as paramount. Such attitudes are inherently anti-intellectual, standing in contrast to the rapid growth in the popularity and accessibility of higher education in the 20th century, the internationalisation of higher education, and the dissemination of intellectual thought and its underlying values.

Secondly, developed countries are facing a crisis in funding universal higher education, partly caused by the rapid increase in public debt over the past decade. High public debt, combined with an ageing population, puts pressure on all public goods of the welfare state, with research and higher education funding being the most critical of these besides healthcare.

The third trend is demographic: ageing societies and declining birth rates, which, together with the two aforementioned trends, are contributing to a slow yet significant shift in the role of universities as drivers of societal progress.

What trends have emerged in Estonia?

On 1 December 1919, when teaching in the Estonian language began at the University of Tartu, there were 347 students enrolled.

Following rapid growth in the 1990s, the number of students in Estonia has stabilised at between 43,000 and 45,000, and according to forecasts, will remain similar in the next decade.

Thus, it can be concluded that there is no expectation of an increase in academic succession in Estonia

At the same time, the number of academic staff has grown, primarily due to political decisions made by the state.

In the next decade, the number of doctoral researchers and junior research fellows will grow further (again, as a result of the government’s decisions): by 50 in 2026 and by 200 over ten years.

However, this increase brings a new challenge. The number and proportion of individuals teaching in higher education institutions have declined. I see a major responsibility for universities to ensure that the growth in the number of doctoral researchers and junior research fellows would also guarantee academic succession in higher education teaching.

This trend reflects the fact that Estonians are not choosing academic careers, as they have become less attractive due to a combination of factors. The financial pressure and influence of populist forces on universities are reducing the appeal of academic careers, leading talented individuals to leave higher education institutions for the private sector. However, within the academic career, the balance between effort, reward, and security has shifted in a way that discourages many talented young people and more experienced individuals considering a research career from pursuing this path.

Weaknesses of the academic career

Based on what I have read and my own experience, I have listed the most critical issues affecting academic careers. Three of the seven points involve shared responsibility between the state and universities, while four depend largely on self-regulation within the academic world.

Structural changes take place in higher education institutions, leading to fewer positions with long-term security. In some cases, researchers must work under temporary contracts and with fluctuating income for over a decade before securing a stable employment contract.

The competitiveness of salaries has declined. The largest pay gaps are in engineering, data science, law, economics and business.

Financial stability arrives late in a researcher’s life. The long period of study – doctoral studies and postdoctoral research – means reaching a stable income later, resulting in a smaller pension and greater difficulty in purchasing a home compared to peers who start working in other sectors after obtaining a master’s degree.

Academic competition has become intense. The pressure to publish has exceeded the critical expediency limit. Quantity is killing quality. Researchers are increasingly experts in extremely narrow fields, and less intellectuals whose work involves reflection, experimentation, discovery, and deep discussion. The pressure to publish and secure grants is a major cause of stress, burnout, and career changes. Such stress often leads to questionable publishing practices.

The value of teaching is underestimated in the metrics-driven system. It is often overlooked that teaching reaches society first through students from universities, and that in this way, the results of a lecturer’s research often reach society much more quickly than through articles in English-language journals.

Intellectual curiosity and mental effort have been devalued in favour of metrics. One of the great appeals of an academic career over a business career used to be that one’s work was valued for its intellectual effort, not for measurable outputs. I was 26 when I chose to leave the business world behind, only to discover that academia, too, is governed by a quantitative system where value is measured in monetary terms.

New generations place greater value on flexibility and mobility, while academic careers are slow to start and inflexible. It is particularly noticeable when moving in and out of the university system.

What to do then?

At the ministry, we are working to improve funding stability and prioritise long-term grants over short-term ones. Competitive funding is often cited as a problem, but in my view, the issue is not whether funding is allocated based on competition, but rather whether it is short-term, lasting one or two years, or long-term. Estonia’s misfortune is that research is heavily dependent on European Union funding, which is allocated only for short or, at best, medium-term projects.

At the national level, it is possible to adjust the balance between long- and short-term funding. The same can be achieved in universities by reforming internal funding systems, although this would also require universities to assume financial risk.

The salary of teaching academic staff is also in a difficult position. Even more critical is the combination of the three weak points in the academic career: the long journey to enter the profession, the instability and low level of income during and after this period in some fields, and the late arrival of financial stability.

I call on the University of Tartu to discuss these issues and propose ways to shorten the academic path and achieve stability more quickly.

But what to do about the pressure to publish? About the undervaluation of teaching? About the dominance of metrics and the lack of flexibility in academic careers?

Some of the solutions do not depend on the decisions made by universities or the Estonian state, as higher education operates in international competition.

However, certain changes are possible; for example, improving the valuation of teaching and the flexibility of academic careers.

The end of the last century and the beginning of the new century were a golden age for Estonian universities, marked by rapid growth in the number of students, a surge into the top ranks of global science, internationalisation, increasing financial support and staffing, the rapid improvement in all indicators of the University of Tartu, and the university’s expansion within the city. But the factors that enabled this rapid growth have now disappeared: globalisation is reversing, and there is less money and fewer students.

Although we do not yet know exactly how the changing global situation will affect the future of Estonian universities, we can see how the current rules of the academic world influence young people’s career choices. Changing these rules is in our own hands.