Icelandic universities budget at least 74 million krona for Brussels office

A shared Brussels office for the University of Iceland and Reykjavik University is expected to cost at least 74 million Icelandic krona over two years, mbl.is reported. One employee has been hired and is due to start next month.

The two-year pilot project received a 40 million krona grant from the Ministry of Culture, Innovation and Higher Education. Its main aims are to raise the universities’ international profile and help them secure more European Union funding for research and innovation, according to the University of Iceland.

University of Iceland rector Silja Bára Ómarsdóttir said she was not aware of the university having had an office abroad before. She said the Brussels office was not a branch, but a focused project to support research and efforts to obtain grants. The university has no plans to open branches abroad.

Competition for international research grants is increasing, Silja Bára said, and she described having representatives close to the EU funding programmes as important for Iceland’s research community. The office should help the universities monitor changes and priorities in the programmes and support Icelandic researchers seeking funding.

The University of Iceland received an average of about 1.2 billion krona a year in EU grants for research projects and student exchanges from 2023 to 2025, according to a report in Morgunblaðið earlier this week. Silja Bára said Iceland’s academic community has generally received more from these programmes than the country contributes to them.

The universities received a joint grant in 2024 to establish the office. If the pilot goes well, the aim is to bring other universities into the project, she said.