Conferral of doctorates

It has been claimed that the doctorate premium included in the university funding system is a perverse incentive. The principle is that the more doctorates conferred by the university, the more funding it receives. However, in practice, it doesn't work this way. For every doctorate conferred, universities receive €90,000. While this is a substantial amount, it does not cover the costs of supervision and other costs incurred. Therefore, even if the number of doctorates increases, the universities' overall research budget does not. This is because the conferral of a higher number of doctorates results in greater depletion of basic funding in the overall research budget. Overall funding therefore does not increase, it is simply distributed differently.