Research funding expenditure was substantially higher in 2019. This resulted in a loss of 80 million francs at the end of the year. The reserves fully cover the incurred loss.
In 2019, the SNSF invested more funds in project funding and in the Sinergia programme in particular. For the first time, it spent over a billion francs on research funding and on reimbursing the overhead expenses of higher education institutions. As it is not legally permissible for reserves to exceed a certain limit, the funds allocated by the government had to be cut by approx. 40 million francs. This increased the negative result. The total amount of the already approved grants for the next six years rose significantly to over 1.5 billion francs (see Grants approved for future accounting years as at 31 December 2019). With a 6.5 per cent increase, expenditure on the Administrative Offices rose less steeply than the research funding expenditure. Additional costs were mainly incurred by IT systems that facilitate the scientific evaluation processes.