University of California, Berkeley
Responding to the
Budget Crisis in
Research
Graham Fleming
Vice Chancellor for
Research
July 16, 2009
VCR Charge
To support and structure research at Berkeley
to maintain excellence and enable worldleading contributions to the Grand
Challenges of the 21st Century.
To provide the service and compliance
infrastructure needed to support worldleading research.
We aim to be world leaders in:
Energy Research
Environmental Research
Health Science
Social Research
The Understanding of the Universe
and Our Planet
International and Area Studies
Information Science and Technology
Human Cultures
Stark reality
The drastic reduction in State funding
requires consolidation and
restructuring of our portfolio of
research units.
What’s the Berkeley campus situation?
Trial by ten cuts (in millions)
1. 2008-09 Temp Cut (Feb Act)
2. 2008-09 Temp Cut (Midyear Cut)
3. 2008-09 Temp Cut (May Revise Budget)
4. 2008-09 Temp Cut (May 26)
5. 2009-10 Temp Cut (Feb Act)
6. 2009-10 Perm Cut (Midyear Cut)
7. 2009-10 Perm Cut (May Revise Budget)
8. 2009-10 Perm Cut (May 26)
9. Unfunded Campus Expenditures
10.UC Systemwide Initiatives
One-time federal stimulus funding: $92.2M
Bottom Line: we have a $145M shortfall
Our revenue will only increase by $30M
We have a remaining shortfall of $115M
$ 4.8
9.4
73.4
29.9
43.9
9.4
11.7
24.1
29.7
1.2
What Does this Mean for VCR?
We have a 21.1% permanent budget cut: $4.4M
We have a block grant cut:
$.4M
We have an additional (temporary) cut:
$1.6M
For a total 2010 cut of:
$6.4M
In addition there’s the furlough…
equal to
$1.3M
Constraints On What We Can Do
VCR permanent budget cut base is $22.3M.
The VCR budget contains high institutional risk
compliance functions serving research activities for the
entire campus that must be maintained - RAC (ACUC,
SPO, OPHS), OLAC, IPIRA, and BIO.
--they cost approx. $5M
--will be cut by 5%-10%
To protect the university and ensure our ability to
obtain external funding this means that remaining
cuts will have to be deeper.
Permanent cuts will average 27-28%.
Some Context
We can no longer afford individual
programs/ORUs to have their own business
services.
Very difficult decisions will have to be made
at the Program Level including consolidation
and likely elimination of some programs.
Programmatic cuts and re-structuring of this
magnitude should be made by people most
knowledgeable about the specific research
areas
Some programs may be more appropriately
managed by a single Dean.
Business as usual is not an option
The situation is urgent and requires
immediate action
This leads us to a two part strategy:
1) Program re-structuring
2) Administrative services re-structuring
Program Re-structuring Plan
1) To implement such drastic cuts with minimum
damage to program, programmatic groupings
of units will be formed and budget cuts will
be assigned at the group level.
2) Several units with limited multi-disciplinary
scope will have their budget cut and oversight
transferred to a single Dean.