The Masaryk University budget for 2025, which aims to support the university’s growth, includes the non-investment and investment budgets of the faculties and other parts of MU, including the proposed medium-term outlook for the MU non-investment budget until 2027. The budget was approved unanimously by all 45 senators present at the meeting.
“As the Rector, who is responsible primarily for the development, stability and strategic direction of Masaryk University, I am very happy with this. In the first year of my term of office, the budget was just over CZK 8 billion, or about 60 percent of the current one. The current budget does much more than surpass cumulative inflation: it enables salary increases, better evaluation of PhD students and further investment. I would like to thank all the senators for their support and, most particularly, I would like to thank all the people who took part in drafting this budget,” says MU Rector Martin Bareš.
The planned non-investment budget, which is based on the assumed revenue structure and cost plan, exceeds CZK 10 billion for the first time in history (by 26 million) and is 913 million higher than last year.
“The increase in revenue is largely due to the increase in the budget allocated to education by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MoEYS) and the growth of our funds for science and research, some of which comes from the MU success in grant competitions. On the other hand, the planned drawdown of university funds is lower and, due to the decline in bank interest rates, so are the university’s own resources,” explains MU bursar David Póč. The budget does not include the indicator for the support of teaching and psychology study programmes, which is worth CZK 53 million, because the terms were announced by the Ministry of Education and Science when the MU faculties were already in the process of approving their budgets. On the cost side, there was an expected increase in salary costs due to the increase in salary tariffs and other costs related to project implementation.
The estimated investment budget of MU for 2025 is CZK 3.7 billion, which is one billion more than last year. The increase in spending is mainly due to the construction of the MUNI BioPharma Hub strategic project and other investments in infrastructure under the National Investment Programme and the Jan Amos Komenský Operational Programme. These include the renovation and completion of the Faculty of Informatics, start of construction of the sports ground at the Bohunice University Campus, renovation of the wheelchair-accessible rooms and elevator at the dormitory on Kounicova and other investment projects across MU.
The MU Academic Senate also approved the distribution of the profit from 2024, which is CZK 77.8 million, into four funds: the working capital fund, the remuneration fund, the reserve fund and the capital asset development fund.
In accordance with the provisions of the Higher Education Act, the Medium-Term Outlook for the Non-Investment Budget until 2027 was submitted for approval at the same time as the budget for 2025.
The process of drafting the university budget is subject to rules that are approved each year. For the past five years, the rules have been implementing the “contract” (a long-term agreement between the MU management and the faculties), which aims to gradually increase the number of students in line with the rising demographic curve while maintaining the quality of teaching and selectivity and, as a new addition, placing more emphasis on student success in completing their studies.
The budgeting rules are one of the important tools of strategic management at Masaryk University. In addition to maintaining the necessary level of stability in the funding of faculties and other parts of the university, they also consider a number of performance indicators in accordance with the objectives of the Strategic Plan of Masaryk University 2021–2028.