In 2018, Poland adopted the Constitution for Science, a major reform of the higher education system aiming to bring it closer to the EU standards. As part of the reform, new criteria for research assessment were introduced.

That led on to the publication of the results of the first assessment carried out in the four-year cycle in August 2022. The standing of each discipline in each institution was evaluated on three major criteria: (1) the quality of research output; (2) securing external research funding; and (3) the impact on society and economy.

The results are classified from A+ to C. While the evaluation is carried out by the Science Evaluation Committee, the Ministry of Education makes the final decision on which classification a particular discipline falls into. That matters, because the classification affects the degree of freedom institutions have in setting up their own study programmes, the right to award doctorates, qualification as an academic institution or a vocational institution, and the amount of funding. All of this feeds into the status of an institution and how it is perceived by the general public.

When the Ministry of Education and Science published initial assessment results under the new system in August last year, almost half of those evaluated were not satisfied with the outcome. 

Of a total of 1,145 disciplines assessed, about 500 people filed requests for the reconsideration of the assigned category, according to Marcin Pałys, a former rector of the University of Warsaw, who is a member of the academic expert group that met education minister Przemysław Czarnek earlier this month group to draw up proposals for adjustments to the system.

Pałys said the initial assessment outcome was rather unexpected. “The most striking part was that among the highest categories, there was a substantial group of institutions that have very few people who work in a given field. For example, the discipline of law in technical universities was ranked very highly,” he told Science|Business.

In mid-September, Czarnek told the newspaper Dziennik Gazeta Prawna that “the overwhelming majority” of these requests are very well-founded, and he expects them to be resolved positively.

Pałys said there is room for improvement, but stressed that any changes will focus on evolution of the system, rather than completely replacing it. Speaking about possible changes, he noted the current assessment algorithm relies on sophisticated calculations, which should be simplified so that participants can better predict outcomes.

Another important issue is adjusting the quality of research output criteria to the needs of different disciplines. In humanities, researchers tend to publish books and monographs, while in technology, scientific papers are more common.  While the four-year evaluation cycle is sufficiently long for papers, it may not be enough for books, Pałys said. He also called for greater balance between bibliometric data, such as publication in high impact journals and the number of times a paper is cited, with peer review and the societal impact of research.

In November 2022, Włodzimierz Bernacki, deputy minister of Education and Science, told the Polish Press agency the amended evaluation criteria will be made public by mid-2023. He underscored that the goal is to improve the evaluation procedure without changing its basic structure.

However, Bernacki also stressed the need to take into account how universities contribute to the ongoing education of scientific staff. At the moment there is no such criterion in place.

Bernacki also suggested adjusting the criteria assessing societal impact by assigning scores for publications in popular science magazines, in addition to scores for publishing in scientific journals.

The Ministry of Education will publish final outcomes of the first research assessment under the new scheme after resolution of the appeals. The 2022–2025 assessment will take place in 2026.

Despite the many complaints about how the upgrade to the research assessment has played out so far, there is general agreement that such assessments are necessary.

Pałys noted also that Polish academics are interested in contributing to the European Commission’s research assessment initiative, and participating in discussions on how to improve methods for assessing research.

In December, when Coalition for Advancement of Research Assessment (CoARA) was set up to take the initiative forward, institutions from Poland were the second largest group, after Italian institutions.

Source: https://sciencebusiness.net/widening/news/Assessment/poland-rework-research-assessment-scheme

In 2019, the British company InGraph LTD launched a project to create the InGraph IT Platform, which aimed to make the criteria for assessing the effectiveness of scientific activity more objective and transparent, abandoning the definition of it only on the basis of citation indicators. The purpose of this approach was to reformat the values of science from the "science for science" model to the "science for human welfare" model. Whereas the first model is based solely on citation rates as the basis for rating scientists and institutions, the second model takes into account the interest in scientific content of users from any sector of national economies, i.e. practitioners.

The rating of scientific content whose authors are affiliated with specific institutions, as conceived by the developer, takes into account the assessments of reviewers and users of scientific content, and user assessments allow for feedback in assessing the objectivity of reviewers. A special feature is that all rating indicators are formed within scientific clusters divided into specific scientific areas and subject areas. This eliminates surprises such as the one identified by Marcin Palys, former rector of the University of Warsaw, when "...among the top categories was a significant group of institutions with very few people working in the field. For example, the legal discipline in technical universities was very highly rated." 

The motivation for scientists to choose the "science for human welfare" model instead of the "science for science" model is obvious: the exclusive preservation of copyright and the ability to choose at their own discretion the option of open or closed access to their publications. In the latter case, the author can monetize his or her work, receiving almost one hundred percent permanent income for life from downloading his or her work by users without any intermediaries. The actual intermediaries in the current model of distribution of scientific publications are publishers who have monopolized this process, receiving both the most profits and copyrights that they take away from authors.

The InGraph IT Platform has been in operation since August 2021, and a full description of its principles and scientific justification can be found in the monograph "The technology of scientific and practical communications: InGraph case study".

The promotional video for this book "The technology of scientific and practical communications: InGraph case study"

You can find this video, as well as video recommendations on how to use the InGraph IT Platform, on the InGraph YouTube channel at the following link