Ministry of Science is changing the system of financing research units
Ministry of Science is changing the system of financing research units. As of 2015, the money they receive from the state budget will depend mainly on the quality of conducted research and awarded scientific categories.
Currently approx. 88 percent of statutory grant research institutes, university faculties, PAS institutes receive from the state budget, is awarded for maintaining research capacity. In some cases, even up to 90 percent of that money is the amount from the previous year, so called transferred constant.
"The result of the system based on legacy was that some very good units received less money than other, much weaker units. We want to abolish the transferred constant and very strongly link the amount allocated from the state budget subsidies to the work quality of the science institutes. New financing system will reward the best" - told PAP Minister of Science and Higher Education Prof. Lena Kolarska-Bobińska.
She emphasized that this was the fundamental change in the financing of institutions. "We are removing a pathological situation in which units receive financial bonus for success they had a long time ago" - she added.
The change will apply to scientific units, which include scientific institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences, university faculties and institutes, research institutes. With the abolition of transferred constant, the importance of scientific category awarded by the Committee for Evaluation of Research Units will increase. Units are evaluated every four years and receive category A , A, B or C. "We want to finance scientific units based on this category, which will radically increase its importance. This will be an incredible change in the financial system, the pillar of which will be the quality of scientific research, not historical legacy" - emphasized Minister of Science.
Ministry of Science also wants to change the parameterisation system for research units. The change has been prepared over the last few months by the Committee for Evaluation of Research Units. Based on the strategic objectives of the Ministry of Science and the results of a study that the Committee conducted, changes will be introduced in the evaluation system. According to minister Kolarska-Bobińska, the changes will be discussed with the scientific community in the autumn. New parametric evaluation of research units, based on the newly prepared criteria, will be carried out in 2017.
The Ministry of Science is working on a regulation to remove the transferred constant. It will be signed in 2014 so that the new rules came into force in 2015.
Minister reassured, however, that the transferred constant would not be "cut off" completely at once, because it would create a lot of confusion. The ministry plans a "smooth transition". "The system will change gradually until 2019 to avoid bumps. We will introduce thresholds to prevent excessive drop in subsidies, or a disproportionate increase in order not to disrupt the system. Thresholds will change from year to year" - said Kolarska-Bobińska.
She admitted that weakest institutions might protest against the new rules. "The best ones have already complained that the current system is completely irrational and unfair. They said: we have A+ or A category, and we get less money than those with lower categories. The idea is to rationalize the system of financing research units and improve the quality of Polish science" - she emphasised.
PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland, Ewelina Krajczyńska
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