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Academic staff in European Higher Education Institutions
ETER data show large differences in the number of academic staff in European Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), as measured in Full Time Equivalents (FTE). Half of the HEIs in ETER have less than 200 FTEs of academic staff, while the largest one (the Catholic University of Leuven) exceeds 7,000 FTEs of staff. Most HEIs in ETER are therefore small in terms of staff FTEs, while most of the academic personnel is concentrated in a core of few hundreds research universities (see figure).
While on the average the number of staff increases with the enrolled students, the relationship is far from linear. An obvious exception is represented by distance universities where staff numbers do not correspond to the large numbers of students enrolled – the UK Open University enrolls 130,000 students with 2,000 FTEs, while Oxford has nearly 21,000 students and 7,000 FTEs of staff. Markedly, the largest universities in Europe in terms of staff are not the ones enrolling more students, but rather the more research intensive. The ten largest European universities by number of staff comprise Oxford, Cambridge, TU Munich, ETH Zurich, all of them enroll less than 50,000 students. In other words, resources tend generally to follow students, but this does not apply for the more research oriented universities (as well as for highly specialized institutions like medical schools).
Figure. Distribution of HEIs in ETER by the number of academic staff (FTEs)
HEIs are divided in three groups. Half of the HEIs are below 200 FTEs of staff, 40%  are above 200 FTEs, but below 1,500 FTEs, while only 10% of the HEIs have more than 1,500 FTEs. The latter 212 HEIs include about half of the academic staff in ETER HEIs.
Variables and data availability
Consistently with EUROSTAT practices, the staff perimeter in ETER comprises all people with a working contract with the HEI, including researchers and PhD students to the extent they have a working contract. Staff is divided into academic (individuals engaged in teaching and research) and non-academic (technical support, administration). Data are provided in Full Time Equivalents (based on the average working percentage during the reference year) and Head Count (all individuals with a contract the last day of the reference year); FTEs are a more reliable measure of human resources that is less affected by the inclusion of part-time researchers and teachers. Additionally, ETER provides breakdown of academic staff (in HC) by citizenship, gender and field of education and training, as well as the number of professors.
A measure of academic staff in either FTEs or HC is provided for 78% or 2,180 of 2,767 HEIs in the 2014 edition of ETER. This corresponds to coverage of 97% of the enrolled students of the HEIs participating in ETER.
Staff data are fully missing for Austria, Estonia, Iceland and Luxembourg. In addition, Denmark, Montenegro, Slovenia and Romania did not provide any data to the 2014 edition of ETER. Data availability is similar for the breakdown of staff by gender (74%), but much lower by citizenship (55%) and, particularly, for the breakdown by field (only 35% of the HEIs have data).
ETER is a European Commission initiative implemented by a consortium of five partners, which aims at providing data on Higher Education Institutions in Europe. It is an Erasmus+ project fully financed by the European Commission. The opinions expressed in this message are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.
https://www.eter-project.com






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European Tertiary Education Register · Università della Svizzera italiana · Lugano 6900 · Switzerland

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