Scientific career and financing of science from the young scientists’ perspective

Abstract

The article reports discussion from the recent conference organized by two the most important bodies of Polish young scientists (The Polish Young Academy and The Council of Young Scientists) and doctoral students national self-government (together with the self-government of doctoral students from the different institutes of Polish Academy of Sciences). The discussion was focused on two key issues: scientific career development and financing of science. In the part devoted to the model-oriented considerations of scientific career, the participants proposed various idea for rendering the profession of a scholar a synonym of the wisdom, reputation, success and general respect. The discussion focussed on several issues which, according to discussants, were crucial. First, they discussed the criteria of granting academic titles and degrees, including the issue of “habilitation”, second, the question of doctoral studies; third, the teaching and research model of employment at universities, fourth, national and international mobility of scholars, and fifth, the principles of a proper assessment of the scholarly contributions. Various elements necessary for the career path of academics were mentioned, such as striving for academic excellence (understood as attempts to carry on research at the highest international level, promotion of international scholarly cooperation, grant seeking, and publishing in the best international journals), proper financing of research, and abandoning of various barriers of formal, bureaucratic and other characters, faced by scholars. The main conclusions of this part of the discussion concerned, among other things, the question of “habilitation”: the dominant view was that, while the habilitation as such should be abandoned, it is not possible in Poland these days without fundamentally altering the whole system of academic employment and career. The point was also made that some changes would be appropriate within the general model of academic career in Poland, including separation of research and teaching functions.  As far as mobility of scholars is concerned the idea was articulated that there should be a proper balance between stability and mobility of scholarly appointment. It was agreed that the proper assessment of the scholarly work should be improved and that there should be an attempt to eliminate conflicts of interest in such an assessment. As for the panel on financing of science, although all panellists agreed that still too little money is invested in science, they concluded that even worse is inaccurate spending of the money. To improve it several ideas were proposed. Firstly, to differentiate even more the way of financing of teaching and research. The financing of teacher should be less focus on the number of students, but rather on the quality of graduates. As a consequence, more money should be given to the universities offering better courses and more professors (ratio between the number of professors and students). Secondly, doctoral studies should be organized more like a grant system: a PhD candidate would have to submit a grant proposal and upon receiving financing in the national wide competition, he or she could choose the university to conduct his/her research. Such a university would receive additional money. It should strengthen the competitiveness between the universities and ensure PhD candidates the best conditions to pursue their studies. Thirdly, as for financing of research, the grant system was assessed as working properly. Then it should be developed. Grants should be open to researchers at different career stages more equally. Moreover, the new type of grants should be considered to be introduced: grants for a short research stay abroad (library research visit). As a conclusion of the conference, the participants agreed that the management of scientific research in Poland changes in the right direction. However, the changes are not as intensive as they should be and it is still a significant distance between the effectiveness of research carried out in Poland and in more developed countries in Western Europe and the US. The common goal of all focused on management of science in Poland is to shorten this distance as much as possible and as fast as possible.