Effective Decision Making in Higher Education

1. Ministry of National Resources A „Good” Government’sexpectationtowards fact- based approach ofdecisionmakingCEDEFOP-2011 Béla KARDON PhD Head of Department Ministry of National Resources Deputy State Secretary for Higher Education & Science Policy Department for Science Policy

2. Some facts on higher education (funding) GERD (Gross domestic R&D expenditure) • GERD (private and public sector expenditure) was ~€ 1120 m, 1.15% of the GDP • EU average GERD was 1,85% of GDP in 2009 • New Lisbon target is 3% of GDP by 2020 • New Széchenyi Plan: 1,5% of GDP by 2015 • There are four major sources of R&D funding in Hungary: businesses (€480,1m, 48%); the central budget (€415.6m, 42%); the foreign (€92.1m, 9%) and the non-profit funding (€5.9m, 1%). • The Hungarian GERD is still financed to a larger extent by the governmentcompared to the EU27 average (33.5%), and the share of funding by the business sector is below the EU27 average (55.0%). • There is only a minor difference in the weight of funds from abroad (EU27: 8.9%).

3. Some facts on higher education (human resources) Number of researchers • Increasing number of researchers: 35700in 2010 • Number of researchers is relatively high in relation to the EU average. • The level of Hungarian researchers employed abroad is high. • The total number of students in the HE system was 361 thousand in the 2010/2011 academic year which is 2,4% less than the previous year. • Hungary has 69 operating higher education institutions in 2011: 29 state and 40 non-state maintained universities and colleges. • The number of students in Master of Sciences and the proportion of PhD program participants have increased but are still low compared to the EU average • In 2010/2011 5,2% of the students are foreign students (18.850) • In 2010/2011 7,3% of the PhD students are foreign PhD students (524) Number of students

4. Target groups in connection of the Data ware basedManagement Information System (DWMIS) and Career Tracking System (GTS) • The primary target group are students studying in higher education and getting their final qualification (Career Orientation System, Higher Education Information System, Unified Student Registering System, DWMIS, etc.). • The secondary target group are graduates looking for job or having already a job.(Career Tracking System (CTS), Alumni Systems, DWMIS (Europass information), etc.). • The third target group focuses on other students who want to pursue their studies in the higher education (Career Orientation System, Public Education Information System, etc.) • The forth target group are teachers, researchers and experts belonging to education and research institutions who are generally interested in the performance and the prosperity of the institution and its activities (Unified Education Registering System, Alumni Systems, DWMIS (Europass information), etc.). • Important target group is the society too, we intend to reach out the wider public publishing our results (DWMIS with dissemination of the results, and operational, financial parameters.) • The international higher education institutions and research places are also emphasised target groups. (DWMIS with dissemination of the educational results, and operational, financial parameters) • .

5. NHES, the newNational Higher Education System • Reconstruction • Racionalization • Relevant • Competitive • Transparent

6. Some principles of the new higher education legislation The new Higher Education Act is under construction and not public yet. • In the framework of e new National Higher Education System (NHES) Government of Hungary supports the most relevant, competitive, high-quality training programsaccording to the national strategy by funding these training programmes and providing scholarshipsonly to the best students. • Rationalizationof the current oversized capacity of the HE and making the HE system transparent by deliberated, well-timed integration of the institutions, the faculties and the departments are essential. The restructuring and integration of the current HE institutional system is inevitable. • The admission frame number belonging to the NHES will be determined in accordance with Hungary’s • economic capacity, • the labour market demands, • the EU directives, • and the demographic indicators. • Clear and accountablecareer system must be operated. Career orientation largely contributes to making specialities and careers of STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) sciences more attractive and encouraging graduates to pursue careers in STEM fields. • The organizational and the content framework of the training program has tomeet clearly the labour-market demands and the expectations of the society. • Rational, qualitative, financial and time limits need to be defined to allow students completing their studies in time. • The institutions of the NHES are expected to permanently contribute to the international scientific research and development at high-level. • Establishment and maintenance of the high quality Hungarian HE must be the main objective of all stakeholders. • Configuration and operation of a fully integrated IT system is essential for the effective and efficient service and finance management and is needed for both strategic and quality management as well. • All these principles require the maintenance of a continuous planningbased on professional decision-making (MIS). • Priority will be given to the STEM educationsand researches by cost-intensive funding schemes, practice/research oriented training programmes. • New researcher career cycle model should be introduced, which contributes to raise the research career’s prestige necessary to attract and retain the potentially most talented STEM researchers.

7. What is the data-warehouse-based management information system (DWMIS) for? • stimulating and supporting the strategy making process, the continuous monitoring of the strategy and, if necessary intervening for correction and feedback of the original objectives; • supporting the quality assurance approach of the higher education (HE) stakeholders (especially regarding to development of trainings and decision-makings); • harmonising the graduate output of the higher education sector and the labour-market demands; • improving the education and services, the labour-market feedback; • enhancing the cooperation of the HE institutions with the business sector; • supplementing and refining thenational mobility data; • (for) the reversal measuresof the career-leaving and migration; • marketing and PR activities (propagation of the Hungarian HE by providing primer, aggregate data on the early employment situations and work role satisfaction of graduates); • presenting the value of the diploma for the society, the foreign HE institutions and the business sector; • evaluating the efficiency of the HE institution and government sector; • providing career information („What does a diploma worth?”).

8. The Governent’s expectation from itself in connection with the MIS The government will: • use data and information permanently; • analyse the key important strategic decisions and, if necessary, intervene; • make the functions of MIS accessible for every organizational units; • share the relevant and required data, analysis with the leaders, the decision-makers, the „clients”, etc.; • provide adequate training of the instructions of MIS functions, data-mining for the potential users; • develop its own visions and strategies since all of the objectives and indicators within the MIS must be deduced from these government visions and strategies; hence it is possible that the MIS becomes the primary strategic management tool;

9. The government’smain expectation in connection with the data and indicators provided by central DWMIS • accurate data (with controllable data sources) that genuinely represent the reality and the situation of the higher education sector • consistent data and indicators defined without contradiction • integrated data and indicators that are embedded into a coherent relation system • complete data: all necessary information are available • reliable and validated data: indicators that meet the requirements of the higher education strategy-making and information distributions • up-to-date, timely data that are continuously updated and accessible • compatible data and indicators that match and are interoperable with the Eurostat database, the OECD database, Hungarian Central Statistical Office etc.. • queryable data source (different aspects, possibilities of grouping etc.)

10. What does the government intend to provide for the HEIs with the strategic data, indicatorsderiving from MIS? • showingup a so-called „compass”, strategic indicators that reflect the government’s main R&D and educational priorities; • using the strategic indicators topoint out the system failures, strategic discrepancies and determining the possible intervention points; • setting up trends that may support the adaption of the HEIs to the international R&D and education system and networks and the demands of the business sector as well; • publishing performance, cost-effective and complacency indicators to assist the national and international competitiveness of the HEIs; • setting up rankings and make international comparisons to provide precised picture of the real situation and position of the Hungarian HE; • making scientific analysis to understand the deeper contexts.

11. What are the government's expectations in connection with the central career tracking system (CTS)? • How do the graduates find a job in general (chancesversus qualifications) ? • Data – in context of trainings, employment, unemployment and income – coming from different connected central databases need to be accurate and valid • New data (basedon inaccessible sources too) available for the HEIs (protection of individual data!) • Permanent feedbackon the output of the central CTS to the HE Institution Development Plan • Significant expansion of the career tracking information recently available for the HEIs • Creating simple but secured data, indicators, data warehouses • Enforcingaggregability and limited comparability

12. The future tasks • Legal regulation of the Data Warehouse based Management Information System (DWMIS) and Career Tracking System (CTS). • The adequate IT infrastructure and professional capacity need to be available for every state-funded HEI, background institution and organization. • By the end of the next development period it should be clear how the new relevant databases can connect to the DWMIS (e.g. database of National Employment Office, Research Registry System, database of the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office). • In the DWMIS there are mostly quantitative input and only few qualitative output indicators. The decision making based on input data conserves the structure and does not motivate the fiscal retrenchment. Therefore the DW must be enriched with qualitative output indicators. • Working out the whole and integrated Career Tracking System. • Upgrading the DW with new functionalities such as Geographical Information System (GIS) to visualize the spatial information, and Semantic Searching Systemto improve search accuracy by understanding searcher intent and the contextual meaning of terms as they appear, etc. • Schedule: • The official data can already be supplied via DWMIS system in 2011/12, • the DWMIS will be the official system from 2012/13.

13. Ministry of National Resources Thank you for your attention! Béla KARDON PhD Head of Department Ministry of National Resources Deputy State Secretary for Higher Education & Science Policy Department for Science Policy