Episode 9 of our podcast features a conversation between our host Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz and Prof. Zbigniew Błocki in which he talks about NCN’s recent situation and condition of Polish science and research institutions after the election.
Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz, Zbigniew Błocki
Prof. Zbigniew Błocki was the Director of the National Science Centre from March 2015 to March 2023 (two terms of office) and interim Director since March 2023
In October 2021, the Minister Przemysław Czarnek said that he would “put the National Science Centre back on its feet”. In August 2023, he promised that in autumn he would close the National Science Centre down and merge it with the National Centre for Research and Development and the Medical Research Agency.
At the same time, the NCN’s budget was frozen.
Prof. Zbigniew Błocki talks about the attempts to “reform” and “starve” the National Science Centre or rather “starve Polish science”.
However, the main part of the conversation was about the future. Prof. Błocki talked about the need to increase the NCN’s budget in the coming years, NCN development directions and new tasks that could be assumed by the NCN. When asked about a “list of tasks” for the new minister and suggestions for what should be done with recently created programmes and institutions (e.g., the Nicolaus Copernicus Academy) or institutions that have succumbed to political pressure (e.g., the National Centre for Research and Development, “NCBR”), our guest said that “[it needs to be] thoroughly reformed, the time is ripe” referring to the National Centre for Research and Development. “I have heard people saying that the National Centre for Research and Development had been working perfectly until now, but a year or year and a half ago a new team came, and the scandals started. Well, it was not really like that. People who are aware of what is happening know that the NCBR did not work well from the very beginning. We have injected tens of billions of zlotys into the so-called innovations (...) and the result is that our innovation rankings are falling”.
At the end, Prof. Błocki summed up his work at the National Science Centre. “I have been saying for quite some time that working for the National Science Centre was the greatest adventure of my life. I am saying that now because this chapter will soon be over. I am very happy that I managed to avoid the greatest threat the National Science Centre was facing [restricted independence]. However, I believe that the recent years have been wasted in terms of opportunities and challenges facing science, but the National Science Centre has survived in its present form, therefore it can still do a lot of good things for Polis science”, he concludes.