“The NCN budget needs to be raised to a level where we can guarantee a success rate of 25% in our calls. This would definitely improve the odds for smaller research centres”, Zbigniew Błocki tells PAP. Błocki also discussed the budget with Science Business.
The acting NCN Director met with Szymon Zdziebłowski from the PAP news agency to discuss the budget of the NCN and the geographical distribution of research funding. He pointed out that the share of the NCN in the state budget has been falling. “Last year, it represented more than 5% of the total research budget, this year, it is already down to under 4%”, he said.
The interview also touched on the issue of centralization in research. Professor Błocki explains that in many countries, research is highly concentrated, with most grants going to just a handful of research centres. He adds that he personally “supports decentralisation, but in Europe, a system of this kind can practically only be found in Germany”.
“For example, in Austria, more than 60% of all grants from a local research-granting agency go to Vienna; for ERC grants, the figure is even higher: 82%. In France and the Czech Republic, respectively, 86% and 63% of ERC grants end up in the capital; in Spain, Barcelona and Madrid get 73% of total ERC resources and in Hungary, Budapest grabs as much as 87%.”, he says.
Professor Błocki also emphasizes that, in Poland, “we need to build a system that would attract the best researchers to regional research centres”. And adds: “Our goal at the NCN is to support top science and we hope it stays that way”.
Professor Błocki also discussed the NCN and its budget with Thomas Brent from “Science Business”: “I’m used to the struggle for the budget every year, but we’ve never been in such a dire situation in our 12-year existence”, he said.