“If the minister gave us an extra 100 million tomorrow, we would give it all away in grants, because this is what we do: we support the best research projects”, says Prof. Z. Błocki in an interview published by “Gazeta Wyborcza”.
Professor Błocki adds that, even if “there were no inflation to speak of, the budget of the NCN should still continue to increase for many years to come as part of a long-term programme to catch up with the average government spending on science around Europe.”
“Freezing the budget of the NCN has dealt the hardest blow to individual researchers. Due to high inflation, research costs have increased dramatically, which means researchers now apply for higher grants; however, since our budget is not growing, our experts need to turn down a lot of excellent projects that should otherwise be funded… What’s at stake, I believe, is the overall good of Polish science. These unfavourable indicators mean that many good projects cannot be funded and the prospects of young people are shrinking much faster”, the director laments.
The interview also touched on many other issues concerning research policy and the NCN, such as its competitive edge, proposal evaluation and support for young researchers.
The interview was published on 22 September by “Gazeta Wyborcza”.
Earlier this month, Prof. Zbigniew Błocki also talked with Mariusz Karwowski from "Forum Akademickie".
Since its establishment, the NCN has supported researchers at different career levels. Between 2011 and 2022 we funded nearly 28,000 projects with a total budget of more than 14 billion zlotys. Our grants went to more than 20,000 researchers. More details can be found under the Facts and figures tab.