Project description
Systematic reflection on the Polish science and higher education sector completely ignores the context of the 1990s, taking the process of integration of the Polish system with the European systems under the Bologna Process and the so-called reforms of Minister Barbara Kudrycka as the genesis of the current state of affairs. Although in contemporary discussions on science policy and higher education policy the period of systemic transformation is presented as a time of the state’s withdrawal from this area – a period of ‘policy of no policy’, this statement is far from the truth. The years of transition cast a long shadow over our present day. In fact, during this period, in response to the conscious policy of the state authorities, specific features and main nodes of problems persisting in the sector to this day developed: a) the discourse of Darwinian competition for research funds, in which the central place is occupied by ‘scientific excellence’ understood mainly as measurable and appropriately indexed foreign publications; b) the massified sector of formally free education, in which the sphere of direct and indirect material support for students was systemically neglected – transforming this group from ‘workers in formation’ into ‘student-workers’.
The essence of the task carried out is therefore to shift the genesis of the Polish system from the turn of the first and second decade of the 21st century to the early 1990s. and the accompanying ‘shock therapy’ of the Polish system of science and higher education. The consequences and effects of the problem addressed in the task are not limited to its historical framework, but are still felt in the Polish system of science and education today. The war on science and higher education in Poland in the 1990s was a conscious and calculated decision by those in power. The discourses developed at that time, which still legitimise areas of the sector’s activity such as science policy or material aid for students, only continue to deepen our country’s peripheral position. There was no room for sovereign development based on knowledge and science in the narrow neoliberal imaginarium. In contemporary discussions about neoliberalism and science in Poland, it is all too easy to dismiss this period with silence. However, it provides the key to understanding many of the obstacles to reforming the sector, as well as the problems we face today.
Higher education and science in Poland today have developed their most problematic elements precisely in response to the deep austerity policies and shock therapy of the 1990s. If, however, this was overwhelmingly due to the massive crisis of public finances during the nineties, the continuity of these discourses outside this context undermines the ability to sovereignly set goals and priorities for science and higher education. Both in terms of the objectives pursued within it and those pursued through the sector. Moreover, there are strong societal trends today indicating that the problem addressed in the task will worsen in the coming years. Firstly, with regard to material support for students. The ever-increasing cost of rental housing in university towns and the difficulty of accessing dormitory places became apparent particularly in 2023 and 2024 in a series of student protests against the housing policies of universities and municipal authorities. The speed and scale of these actions show that the problem will grow. Secondly, in the context of the evaluation of science and its substructure in the form of the discourse of scientific excellence. The scientific community in Poland remains radically divided over the way research evaluation is conducted. Changes to the method of evaluation or the changing scoring of scientific journals have strongly contributed to the deepening of disputes between disciplines over how to identify and define scientific excellence. Here, too, the intensity of this dispute and the multiplicity of solutions put forward clearly illustrate the deepening nature of the problem posed.
Failure to reflect systematically on the issue posed by the ‘shock therapy’ of the 1990s in the context of the science and higher education sector risks exacerbating these trends and having further social consequences. First and foremost in the form of deepening disputes within the Polish scientific community and its loss of confidence in the mechanisms for evaluating scientific research, as well as in the context of the increasing number of people who, faced with the lack of material support mechanisms, resign or do not pursue higher education at all.
Research Questions
The project will explore the consequences of the extreme neoliberal austerity policies of the 1990s for the science and higher education sector and the specific responses to these processes by the sector itself (students and academics). The research conducted in the assignment is focused on two nodal processes: a) the development of discourses justifying the necessity of science funding used by academics and politicians in the 1990s; b) the changing justifications regarding the (in)relevance of indirect material support for students (dormitories, canteens, student clubs) at national and university level. Through the implementation of the assignment, the following three questions will be answered:
- What discourses on science and higher education accompanied the introduction of the ‘shock therapy’ in Poland?
- What consequences did the ‘shock therapy’ have on the nature and dynamics of the massification of higher education in Poland?
- What issues did the student and academic community raise in protests against the ‘shock therapy’ in higher education and science?
The answers to these questions, linked to the contemporary situation of the public policy discussion in relation to science and higher education, will be formulated in three analytical reports, and a synthetic book publication.
Related events
- 13-14 December 2024 – I National Conference of Critical Higher Education and Science Research. Poznań. Organiser: Scholarly Communication Research Group AMU.
Project funded from funds of Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. (agreement number MNiSW/2024/DAP/236. Funding amount: 238 530 PLN). Krystian Szadkowski is project’s PI.
Funded from the public budget
The task of Minister of Science and Higher Education
Research on the consequences of ‘shock therapy’ of 1990s for the contemporary conditions of development of science and higher education in Poland.
Funding
238 530 PLN
Total value of the project
238 530 PLN
The date of signing of the agreement
12 September 2024
Obrazek ChatGPT