In a recent judgment of the Court of Justice in Joined Cases C-164/21 and C-318/21, SIA Baltijas Starptautiskā Akadēmija and SIA Rīgas Ekonomikas augstskola – Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, it provided an interpretation of Article 2(83) of Regulation No 651/2014, and on the criteria for identifying such a body, and whether such a private body has the possibility to access research funding.
For the Court, it stated that bodies applying for research funding can be private bodies, as well as public ones, and thus leveled the playing field for access to public funds between private and public educational entities.
It’s extensive interpretation applies, even when ‘the majority of…revenue comes from economic activities…provided that it can be established…that its primary goal is to conduct, in complete independence, activities of fundamental research, industrial research or experimental development, possibly supplemented by activities for the dissemination of the results of those research activities, by means of teaching, publications or transfers of knowledge.’
Moreover, such a body ‘cannot be required to earn a certain proportion of its revenue from its non-economic activities of research and dissemination of knowledge’. It is not necessary that the body reinvests the revenue generated, and nor is the status of the shareholders an possible profit-making nature of the activities relevant.
Overall, a victory for privately-financed higher education, ensuring their access to research funding also.
The judgment of the Court of Justice (Court of Justice of the European Union) in Joined Cases C-164/21 and C-318/21, SIA Baltijas Starptautiskā Akadēmija and SIA Stockholm School of Economics in Rigacan be accessed at the following link: https://lnkd.in/e3rjrjVZ
Graham Butler