“We want to pursue our ambitions and our research here in Poland. If the stated radical change in the research-funding model is implemented, it will deliver a hard blow to Polish science”, ERC grant holders write in an open letter to the President and the Prime Minister of Poland. The letter has been signed by 49 researchers and comes in response to the changes in the status of the NCN recently announced by the Ministry of Education and Science.
The Ministry of Education and Science has been preparing the ground for this change for many months. Several weeks ago, during the 13th International Interdisciplinary Research Seminar “Ideas – Man – Philosophy” in Stary Sącz, Professor Przemysław Czarnek, Minister of Education and Science, announced that after the upcoming parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for this autumn, the National Science Centre will be shut down and fused into a single central institution with the National Centre for Research and Development and the Medical Research Agency.
ERC grant holders working at Polish host institutions have voiced their protest, emphasising that the NCN is an institution modelled on European basic research-funding agencies, politically independent and managed by the research community.
“After many years at leading international research centres, many of us decided to relocate back to Poland and build their research teams and programmes here, rather than elsewhere. Often, this decision was dictated by the fact that Poland had the NCN, along with its independent, merit-based system of basic research funding”, the researchers write in their open letter.
Since the founding of the European Research Council (2007), Polish researchers have brought home a total of 75 ERC grants in all categories. 11 of them have won an ERC grant more than once.
The signatories of the open letter in defence of the NCN believe that the opportunity to work in projects funded by the agency early on in their career helped them build the research potential they needed to later successfully apply for ERC grants. “The NCN has spent years supporting thousands of talented and ambitious Polish researchers at different career levels. Without its support, their work may no longer be possible, which can do great harm to research in Poland”, they observe.
“We want the Polish economy to grow thanks to top-quality research. We want Poland to be recognised worldwide as a country with high research and technology potential. This is why we appeal to you, Mr President and Mr Prime Minister, to maintain the current, independent, expert-based model of the NCN”, they conclude.