Poland – where science is crumbling

By Wieslaw Horabik

Date: 18/11/04

Poland's science sector is undernourished and, it seems, badly managed. Polish scientific circles have for years been waiting for a new law on higher education. The bill is in the Polish parliament, yet some experts have already voiced serious objections to its stipulations.

"The regulation aims more at the improvement of supervision over scientific life than at its development," says Marek Rocki, president of the Warsaw High School of Commerce. "It is prepared as a remedy for current pathologies and the necessity of counteracting them. Its objective is not the promotion of creative attitudes, but laying foundations for more proficient supervising."

Poland designates only 0.3% of its gross domestic product to scientific research, compared to the EU's stated objective of 3%. Hopes for improvement were associated with grants from the European Union. Polish scientists became beneficiaries of EU funds a few years ago. Within the fifth framework programme for research they participated in 4,292 projects and coordinated 654 of them. The sixth research framework programme, 2002-06, promised even bigger returns. The response was massive. Across the EU, taking all actions together, 200 major transnational research networks and projects have been launched and 28,000 research proposals have been submitted involving 150,000 scientific and industrial institutions.

It was publicly proclaimed that the Polish input into the programme would be intensified. But Polish scientific institutions soon found themselves faced with difficulties from the country's new legislature. They complain, in particular, about a new law on value added tax (VAT). It imposes the obligation on the academic centres to pay 22% VAT on EU aid. The problem, however, is that although the tax is refundable, universities have no money to invest up front. The department of molecular physics at the Lodz Polytechnic, for instance, managed to secure an EU grant of €290,000 in four years for research on new organic materials for optoelectronics. The VAT for that grant would be €33,000. "We have no such money," says professor Jacek Ulanski, the head of the department. "The only solution is to give up the grant and withdraw from the project."

There are many alarming messages of this kind coming from various Polish scientific institutions. The ministry of scientific research and information technology proclaims its help, but only in reference to future grants, not to those that have already been approved. It wants to assign some money to support universities from the committee for scientific research, the body that it practically controls. For Polish researchers, withdrawal from the EU projects would mean the end of cooperation with leading European academic centres and problems with getting the next generation of EU grants. But the ministry of finance argues that the prospects of introducing the 22% VAT had been known long before Poland's EU accession.

The troubles for Polish science run deeper than current problems with VAT.

Since 1990 there has been an unprecedented drive to put young Poles into higher education. There are more than 400 academic institutions providing knowledge and information in Poland today, both private and public, and the number of students has more than tripled compared to the communist times. New universities and new departments at the old ones are founded almost every term of the academic year. Yet such diversity of educational choice has its flip side. "Identical, state warranted diplomas are issued by all Polish academic institutions regardless of their ownership status or the assessment of their curricula and the level of education they offer," says professor Jerzy Durczak at Lublin University.

The development of public universities in these times of educational boom is inhibited by the lack of funds from the state budget. There is no clear system of financing higher education and public schools are forced to work out additional resources to survive. Private institutions thrive, yet they stretch their capabilities to the limit, which harms the quality of services they provide.

The assumption of the uniform state diploma has yet to be followed by harmonizing the nomenclature referring to particular scientific disciplines, standardization of the scientific programmes and efficient supervision over the way educational tasks are executed.

Today, most leading Polish scientists work abroad; those with stronger patriotic feelings and less mercantile attitudes occasionally appear at their original Alma Mater to give a lecture or a free consultation. Many exceptionally talented people who, in the future, could reinforce the scientific staff at Polish universities move to the commercial sector or emigrate to other countries. Hence, relatively important achievements in the sphere of didactics and a looming threat of a breakdown in the area of research.

Panacea for the scarcity of funds in Polish science might be its closer cooperation with private entrepreneurs. Links with business and science are increasing all over the world. Many universities in Poland have recently introduced more flexible curricula and forms of studies to better adapt them to the demands of industry. A uniform method of evaluating students' progress, consistent with EU directives, is also being implemented.

Profound reforms and the creation of a transparent system of financing education in Poland seem to be a necessity. Will there be sufficient political will to conduct the desired changes? Professor Durczak says that the development of science is a matter of long-term perspective and parliamentary elections occur every four years. It is difficult to turn a parliamentarian into a visionary at such short notice.

• Wieslaw Horabik is a freelance journalist based in Poland.

Author says that while a new law on higher education is in the Polish parliament, the country's science sector is undernourished and badly managed.