Publication points and the Norwegian funding model

Parts of the funding of Norwegian higher education institutions are performance-based. Scientific publications yields publication points, which the Ministry of Education use as basis for reallocation of funds between institutions ("RBO").

The performance-based model aims at stimulating more scientific publication, with higher quality.

The "RBO" funding total is fixed each year. This means that the money value of a publication point is dependent on the total sum of publication points awarded to the institutions in the higher education sector. The distribution of publication points one year, e.g. 2013, is reflected in the reallocation of budget funds two years later, e.g. 2015.

Publication points

Publications registered in the Cristin system will yield publication points, if certain conditions exists:


Publication points calculation

1) Base weighting - publication categories and scientific level:

Publication category Level 1 Level 2
Academic article in journal or series (with ISSN) 1 3
Academic article or chapter in book anthologies/proceedings (with ISBN, without ISSN) 0,7 1
Academic monograph/book 5 8

 

2) International cooperation

The institution's points are multiplied by a factor of 1,3 for publications with international co-authors. (New from 2015)

3) The "square root" adjustment

Also introduced with the new calculations from the reporting year 2015, a square root formula adjusts the points. See details in the Reporting instructions and example at PhD on Track, "Share_of_Authorship"


Additional info:

  • If an author has credited more than one institution, his/hers points share will be divided between the institutions credited.
  • Non-Norwegian shares are also included in the calculations. However, only the point shares that are credited to Norwegian institutions in the Cristin-system will be translated to actual money in form of the "RBO" part of governmental funding.
  • The money value of a publication point varies from year to year, and can be found in the annual, Norwegian only Orientering om forslag til statsbudsjett for universiteter og høyskoler ("The Blue Book").
    The value of a publication point for the budget year 2018: NOK 23726 (this value is based on the sector results reported for the publication year 2016).

 

 

Details on the model can be found in the annual, Norwegian only Orientering om forslag til statsbudsjett for universiteter og høyskoler ("the blue book").

The basis for the model is described in the report A Bibliometric Model for Performance-based Budgeting of Research Institutions