Abstract
Due to strong political pressures, originated particularly in reforms of the management of public services, more and more governments tend to innovative solutions in the allocation of funds to universities. One of their main tasks is to ensure that higher education systems have been able to respond to the growing demand for tertiary education and also to increase the number of students in the context of cuts in public budgets.
Therefore, the national mechanisms for the distribution of funds have changed in recent years and are no longer based solely on traditional budget negotiations between universities and public authorities, but in many countries has been growing proportion of funds distributed by mechanisms based on open competition, which directly reward success and are often part of the basic formula funding. This mechanism is a core element of the range of models of university funding.
However the specific strategies and mechanisms vary between countries due to specific conditions that are based on political culture, size of country, demographics, history, position of universities, budget on higher education and relationships between public authorities and the higher education sector.