Where do we categorise Public sector consultancies and commissioned research for ministries?
Among the items for “Income by Type of Activity” there is a category “Privately funded research contracts”. The U-Map team feels that a more appropriate label for this category is “Externally funded research contracts & consultancy (excluding national and international research councils)”. Therefore, the word “Privately” should be read as “Externally”, so it also covers the revenues from public sources. Apart from the revenues from private research contracts and consultancies you are also asked to report here the commissioned research and consultancies for the public sector. Please revise your data if so far the revenues from commissioned research & consultancies for the public sector were categorised under other revenue items.
How frequently will the data collection for U-map be carried out in the Nordic Countries, once this round has been completed?
The current U-Map project phase is financed by the Nordic Council for one time. It is not known whether and how the Nordic Council or the national ministries will updatet the U-Map profiles. At the moment the U-map team is developing a ‘business model’ to offer future updating. The U-map team does not consider it feasible to update the profiles annually.
What is the reference year for U-Map in the Nordic countries?
For the Nordic countries we will use 2010 as the default reference year (calendar year 2010 and academic year 2010-2011).
What is the deadline for submission of the data?
For Finland, Sweden and Norway the new deadline is 15 May. For Denmark and Iceland the new deadline is 22 May.
How is the concept of region used?
The concept of ‘region’ remains a challenge. The U-map team anticipates to have a common definition of region and therefore proposes to use NUTS2.
FIN: How shall we deal with the special case of donations(a source of income)?
In the technical workshop in Finland it was agreed not to include donations in questions related to income. This is because 2010 was a special year and it is not representative for other years.
FIN: How is the total number of students enrolled, used in the prefilling?
The total number of students enroled refers to all degree levels. In Finland Bachelor, Master, Licentiates and Doctoral Students are included. In addition, in the technical workshop it was agreed to only include those students that registered 'present' for a year. Those that registered 'absent' are excluded here.
FIN: We have semi-doctorate students in Finland (having licentiate). Where shall we include them?
Please count them in the category 'degrees awarded in third cycle programs' (excluding Phd).
FIN: Where shall I list the number of concerts organised?
It has been agreed with the Ministry for Education that concerts in Finland are included in the category 'other research products'.
DK:How many institutions are participating in the Nordic countries and Denmark?
The project allows for 144 institutions in the Nordic Region to participate. At the moment, 113 of these 144 institutions showed their willingness to participate. In Norway and Island, all institutions will participate in the project, in Finland 73%; in Denmark 50%, and in Sweden 40%. We eventually hope to reach the number of 144, and will ask all remaining institutions to register for the project. Not only research universities are invited to join, but all other types of higher education institutions that provide official degrees can participate and have their profile constructed.
DK:What do you mean with mission statement?
The default mission statement in Denmark might be too much orientated towards policy makers. What U-map would like to see is a statement that is also orientated towards other stakeholders in higher-education.
The mission statement of the institution reflects – in a nutshell- the institution’s core purpose, it’s identity, values and principle organizational aims. Institutions can provide their most recent mission statement (not necessarily that of the default year) in English language.
DK:How to deal with patents?
After the suggestion to include all patents applied for due to academic efforts, it was discussed how to deal with patents. However, for reasons of international comparability, it is decided to stick to the definition used by U-map. This means that patents only include those who are filed by the institution and exclude those that fall outside the borders of the institution.
NOR: Taken into account that Norway has different moments to count students, which moment is the one to use?
The October measurement is the most reliable and therefore used.
NOR: As there is a major difference between 'students' and 'degree seeking students' in Norway, is it possible to use a deviant definition in the case of Norway?
The U-Map team conducted an analysis, trying to accommodate the situation in a way which is good for the individual countries, the Nordic region and the existing database. On basis of the analysis it is concluded that there is not enough reason to use a deviant definition for student enrolment in Norway. Students enrolled refers to headcount, degree seeking. The considerations and results of the analysis are online in the Norway section.
NOR: What do you mean with region?
After the workshop the U-Map team deliberated with the project group and the other Nordic countries and it was decided to use NUTS 2 as a consistent classification for the Nordic countries. On the website is an overview of the NUTS 2 levels for Norway.
NOR: Which percentage of new entrants from the region shall we count?
New entrants at the higher education institution at the Bachelor level shall be counted here.
NOR: How to deal with fully university owned companies/TTOs that serve as the agency that administer contract research and commercialization activities?
After the workshop the U-Map team decided that TTOs who are inside universities can be included. If they are not part of the university, the U-Map team decided not to include them. That means that any income generated by the TTOs (be it licensing income, income from private research contracts etc.) or patents and spin-offs linked to the TTO only are not included.
NOR/ICE: How to deal with double degree students and joint-degree students?
After the workshop, the U-map team conferred with the Dutch Agency for Internationalization (Nuffic) on how to deal with double degree and joint-degree students. It is decided to count both double degree students and joint-degree students as degree seeking, and not as exchange students.
ICE:What does the size of the rays actually mean and how is it determined?
In general, the longer the ray, the more active an institution is in the activity domain covered by that indicator. Indicator scores are divided into four categories (typically: no, some, substantial, or major involvement in the activity in question). The boundaries between the categories are determined by cut-off points that depend on the distribution of the indicator scores across the institutions in the reference group. At the moment, quartile scores are used to establish the cut-off points. The category in which an indicator score is placed is reflected in the length of the corresponding ray in the sunburst chart. For the U-Map Nordics project, two profiles will be constructed: one where all the Nordic institutions countries act as the reference group, and the other where all European institutions in the U-Map database determine the cut-off points.
ICE:How visible is our U-Map profile?
After approval by the institution’s board, the profile will be visible on the U-Map website. For the moment the profile pictures are password-protected. However, by the end of the year we anticipate to publish the profiles of the U-Map database along with those for other institutions included in U-Map. This will of course only take place after accordance from the institutions. The way to move forward in proceeding towards approved profiles is described in the project’s protocol.
ICE: Why do we have to fill in the legal status in national language and to what extent is it different from the three categories?
This information will show how the institution would like to be shown on its ‘business card’. However, sometimes the category ‘public’ may not be specific enough to describe particular characteristics.
ICE: How to treat a student that is required to be on campus only for two weeks in a semester (for a course of say 10 ECTS)?
After comparing with current institutions and discussing the issue in the U-Map team, we have decided to not regard these students as students enrolled in distance education, but to treat them as regular students.
ICE: How to deal with regulated professions?
As there are European ones and Icelandic ones it is decided to use the Icelandic law to identify regulated professions. The prefilled data used the European list and is therefore showing a high number of ‘other career oriented programs’.
ICE:Where should we include the income of ‘bridge courses’?
The income of bridge course should be included in ‘other sources of income’.
SE: How to report students? In FTE or headcount?
All data will refer to fte students since headcount would seriously bias the size of the institution (because participants in courses would be added to students in degree seeking programs). Using fte is also in line with what Sweden and Swedish institutions use in international comparisons.
SE: How to deal with intellectual property rights in the special case of Sweden?
After the workshop, the U-Map team discussed together with experts and the project group how to best deal with the special case of Sweden as in Sweden the IP resides with the individual researcher and not with the institution. Because of this, licensing income and patent applications are zero. This may have a serious impact on the profile. However, the U-Map team suggests, for reasons of international comparability, to stick to the definition used by U-Map and only include those that reside with the institution.
SE: Why is part-time data for students not pre-filled?
A different definition is used at the Ministry, therefore the data can not be pre-filled.
SE: Where shall I list art-degrees?
The Ministry of Education suggested to list art-dgrees here: Other career oriented programs.