The press very recently revealed President Trump's decision to suspend federal funding for America's most prestigious university: Harvard. More than $2.2 billion is said to be frozen; other threats are hanging over the tax arrangements from which the American University benefits. Numerous federal research agencies have also been subject to drastic cuts, and thousands of researchers have been laid off on the spot. These decisions are, arguably, aimed at muzzling these knowledge-producing institutions, particularly by limiting academic freedom.

While we haven't reached that point in Belgium today, it has to be said that there is a great deal of concern in the academic world.

In fact, the various governments grappling with budgetary and even political choices are exerting considerable pressure on the Universities. There are many reasons for this concern. They relate to the overall reduction in funding for Universities and the FNRS; to funding from the Walloon Region, which is in decline, and which is increasingly geared towards short-term applications to the detriment of basic research, essential to the continuum of the innovation process; to questions about the future funding of the humanities, to the questioning of appointments in the academic sector or drastic reductions in the amount of retirement pensions. If all the measures announced at this level are activated, academics could quickly see their pensions reduced by 30 to 40%. No other professional category, apart from magistrates, will experience such a fall in pensions, among other things in connection with late entry into the career. And this without any possible compensatory mechanism in the short term, and to the detriment of the principle of acquired rights.

These issues are therefore not only linked to the pure financing of university activities. They also influence the very attractiveness of an academic career, which nevertheless plays an essential leveraging role in the sustainable development of our contemporary societies. This is a far cry from the statements made by the Senate in 1965 during discussions on university expansion: "The costs of education, far from being a dead weight, are eminently productive expenditures, contributing powerfully to the economic development of the country" (Senate, Session 1964-65, doc. 162).

Savings sought on the backs of universities are putting considerable pressure on the latter in a context where their funding structures lock them into an economically absurd model: continuous increase in the number of students within a closed envelope, competition between establishments based on student numbers, low capacity to capture alternative resources to public subsidies, and so on. Nevertheless, universities do a remarkable job with their limited resources. They train citizens, produce and disseminate knowledge, contribute to Belgium's R&D objectives, and have an international presence. They also carry out numerous missions of general interest: public health policy, support for students in precarious situations, participation in numerous expert or advisory bodies, business creation, associative and cultural life. Any modification or erosion of their resources without a deep understanding or reflection on the cost structure and financial basis of universities is as dangerous as it is destabilizing. The universities understand that society is facing many challenges, but they believe that all the reforms currently under discussion at various levels of government need to be assessed in their entirety. The aim is to be able to measure their combined and cumulative effects.

Among the threats hanging over public universities and research centers is also the reform of the withholding tax exemption scheme for those engaged in concrete research activity, in the public sector.

However, this measure was initially (1) designed to promote scientific activity in the public sector. It has gradually been extended to the private sector, to the point where the latter represents 69% (2) of the measure's beneficiaries. On several occasions, the Court of Auditors and the Federal Council for Science Policy have called for greater controls on the application of these measures, and for the system to be clarified. Not its disappearance. Quite the contrary.

Today, however, it seems that only the public sector and therefore, also Universities, are targeted by the Arizona Government's reform projects. And yet, this scheme represents, more or less, 7% of the Universities' structural revenues! Revising its scope would have dramatic consequences for the academic sector, as well as for the teaching provided in universities, which, along with scientific research and service to society, constitute the essential missions of universities. This would also have a detrimental effect on students.

However, we question the relevance of this political ambition.

In fact, of all the withholding tax exemptions that exist in the Income Tax Code (CIR-92), those linked to research in Universities account for just 4% of the total amount of exemptions granted by the Belgian State (3). The budgetary argument is therefore not credible.

Would this political ambition have other aims, especially given the financial situation of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, which would be unable to compensate for such a reduction in these federal tax measures? The weakening of the academic world and its missions would be, in any case, dramatic for our Community and would come to precariousize, even more, one of the essential engines of the redeployment of Wallonia, Brussels and their population.

The French-speaking Rectors are resolved and determined to ensure that this essential measure is preserved as it stands, and that a stable, predictable and appropriate methodology is confirmed via the drafting of clear circulars applicable to all regional tax audits.

(1) Program-Law of December 24, 2002

(2) And only 16% in favor of Universities.

(3) According to data from SPF Finances (2022), 34% of all resources made available by the Belgian State through withholding tax exemption schemes (€3.9 billion) are allocated to the measure in favor of research. And, only between 10 and 15% to universities.