SHIFT (Strengthen HE through Innovative Financial Tools) is a research platform funded by the European Commission Erasmus Plus research programme. It brings together a transnational consortium of 7 partners from 4 countries (United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Poland). 

Durham University Business School is proud to be an academic partner of the SHIFT project. The project is led by Professor Dennis Philip and researchers at the Centre for Banking, Institutions and Development (CBID), who bring to SHIFT their expertise of implementing effective and innovative provisions for financial education and financial literacy internationally. 

The Project 

Public funding accounts for 85% of all funding of Higher Education (HE) in the EU. The economic crisis led governments to cut public expenditures and decrease public funding, while demand for HE continues to increase. The EU recognises that the students pay the price, with the financial burden increasingly being shifted to students (“Modernisation of Higher Education in Europe: Funding and Social Dimension”). 

Financial inclusion of HE students to fund their education is hence an utmost priority for the EU: such a priority is recognised by Erasmus+ Horizontal Priority 6, p 121 of Programme Guide: “Sustainable investment, performance and efficiency in education”. 

Against this backdrop, SHIFT has the objective of alleviating the financial burden of students’ access to and participation in HE, while increasing the efficiency of public spending in HE by developing a new funding model for HE based on virtuous public-private partnerships. It aims to develop an innovative approach based on financial instruments and models (mix of endowment fund and investment fund) that will generate increased financial resources to be distributed as grants, matching grants and soft loans for HE students. 

The SHIFT model pools financial resources from both the public and private sectors, serving the dual purpose of: 

1. Increasing efficiency of public expenditure: SHIFT enhances the sustainability of public resources by generating additional funding opportunities for scholarships of university students. The public funds allocated into the SHIFT model (the endowment fund) will be invested (through the investment fund) and only the profits generated will be disbursed (through grants and soft loans) to students, hence keeping intact the capital (here the sustainability of the public funds) 
2. Mobilizing private resources: SHIFT establishes a virtuous mechanism of public and private partnership. Not only does SHIFT pool funds from public and private sectors but it also will consolidate public and private attitudes towards facilitating access to finance for HE students. 

The results are posted on the SHIFT website.