Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and Higher Education, Jarosław Gowin, was invited to join a meeting of the Council of the National Science Centre on January 18th in Jaroszowice near Wadowice. The discussion focused on the role of the NCN in the system of financing science, the main directions of the Centre’s activities in the coming years and planned changes in science and higher education.
Prime Minister Gowin presented the main premises of the Higher Education Act 2.0, developed after extensive consultations with the scientific community (a draft of the Act was made public on January 22nd). He emphasised that the National Science Centre has played an important part in the process of changing Polish science and has made a significant impact on improving the level of research carried out in Poland.
A part of the meeting was devoted to the improvements being introduced by the Centre in the process of applying for grants and their implementation. NCN Director prof. Zbigniew Błocki emphasised that the Centre has been aware of opinions that differences in the rules of individual calls for proposals make the administration of grants difficult. Therefore, the changes introduced by the Centre will apply retroactively, so that they can be applied to all ongoing projects.
- For me, the notion of deregulation is really well-founded. I listened with hope and appreciation to the solutions proposed by the NCN to make administrative processes less bureaucratic. Let us remember that the shape of the NCN calls, created by the scientists themselves, significantly affects the competitiveness of Polish science in the international arena - stressed Deputy Prime Minister Gowin.
One of the Council’s priorities in the near future is further internationalisation of the Centre’s actions, in particular, the development of new bilateral programmes and the alignment of the NCN proposal peer-review system with the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP). The Centre also plans to minimise changes introduced to the rules and regulations in subsequent editions of the calls.
- The National Science Centre was created by scientists for scientists. For years we have been listening to voices coming to us from the scientific community and I cannot imagine not taking them into account. When modifying our call regulations, we look at them from the perspective of the Polish scientists’ needs so as to create the optimal conditions for achieving scientific excellence - said prof. Janusz Janeczek, Chairman of the NCN Council.
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