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POLAND’S scientists are growing increasingly nervous about the implications
of the decision by the country’s Solidarity-led government to switch to
Western-style funding of research at the end of the year.

Ministers in the government of Tadeusz Mazowiecki, which came to power
in August 1989, have made it clear that they do not intend to prop up a
scientific establishment which, they feel, is overloaded with institutes
and research projects of little relevance to the problems facing the country.

The government will expect applied science institutes to finance themselves
through direct contracts with industry. Fundamental research will have to
compete for grants from a national research council. University science
will receive direct government support only to the extent that such support
is needed for teaching or the preparation of postgraduate dissertations.

These changes do not mean that the government is anti-science. According
to the Vice-Marshall of the Senate, Zofia Kuratoska, who is an internationally
known haematologist, it has a ‘strong commitment’ to the long-neglected
sectors of science, health and education. One of the first acts of the Mazowiecki
government, she points out, was to increase science funding up to the end
of 1990.

But science, like every other aspect of Polish life, is caught up in
a broader political reform package designed to replace state patronage by
financial self-reliance. And not surprisingly, these proposals have caused
some concerns in the Polish scientific community.

Not everyone shares Kuratowska’s confidence in her government colleagues.
‘The government does not have the mentality to see that basic science in
the strict sense is essential for the country,’ one institute director commented
on the cuts. ‘Politicians think only about instant successes, about tomorrow.’

To many researchers, the idea of giving grants to individual projects
or teams is reminiscent of the official hierarchy of research ‘problems’
established in 1973 by Sylwester Kaliski, then Minister of Science, Higher
Education and Technology. Kaliski’s scheme is generally considered to have
wasted resources and to have made no provision for enabling institutes to
purchase equipment or journals for general use.

In the mid-1980s the scheme was replaced by looser government-sponsored
‘programmes’. Many scientists employed by the Polish Academy of Sciences
now fear that the new system of granty (the English word newly adopted with
Polish case-ending) will simply turn out to be a revamped version of the
Kaliski system, the only difference being that scientists, rather than bureaucrats,
will decide on priorities.

Even those with the first-hand experience of the Western system are
worried about the prospect of transplanting this system into Poland. Leszek
Kuznicki, Vice-President and Learned Secretary of the Academy, points out
a further anomaly.

Poland’s current reform programme is aimed at decentralisation and democratisation;
the academy, in particular, is committed to devolving considerable decision-making
power to its individual institutes. Yet the concept of a national research
council allotting grants will, he fears, inevitably lead to a new centralisation
of control. ‘Devolution followed by centralisation is characteristic of
all revolutions,’ observes Kuznicki. ‘Poland’s current revolution is no
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Not surprisingly, doubts about the reforms increase the farther one
goes from the capital. In Wroclaw, six hours from Warsaw by train and close
to the current border with the German Democratic Republic, university staff
are particularly aware of their isolation. The university has a long tradition
of regionally oriented studies, for example in fields such as geology and
zoology, that in some cases predate its incorporation into Poland in 1945.

Few people in Wroclaw admit to taking seriously recent demonstrations
in both East and West Germany calling for a return to the frontiers of 1937.
However, there is apprehension that such events may subconsciously bias
the future research council against Wroclaw-based research. As a result,
in addition to direct research contracts, Wroclaw University has set up
its own trust fund, even in advance of promises from ministers of legislation
which will make such funds tax-exempt.

At the same time, the university is building up its West German contacts.
For example, it is currently preparing a book on German studies in the university
for a Munich publisher. ‘To ignore the unique German problem for our university
would be to hide our heads in the sand,’ says Wojciech Wrzezinski, a historian
who is strongly tipped as the next rector of the university.

Other areas distant from the capital face a bleaker outlook. Szczecin,
in the northwest corner of the country, which is six hours by train from
Warsaw, possesses Poland’s newest university, founded in 1985.

But this establishment is now generally admitted to have been hastily
put together – for political reasons – out of a pre-existing teachers’ training
college, agricultural school and marine biology institute. As a result,
it lacks the standing needed to acquire the finance, equipment or staff
it needs.

In recent months, the deficiencies of Szczecin’s university have been
roundly criticised in the media, which have characterised it as a folly
of the previous regime. As a result, local sponsorship of the type already
promised in Wroclaw seems unlikely to be forthcoming.

A different situation exists on the other side of the country in Bialystok,
close to the Soviet frontier and three hours by train from Warsaw. A campus
of Warsaw University was established in Bialystok in the 1960s to serve
as a centre for regional development. But plans to convert this campus into
a fully-fledged independent university (originally scheduled for 1991) have
been ‘frozen’ until the end of the decade.

This deferment is not simply due to a lack of money. At present, many
lecturers commute between Warsaw and Bialystok, teaching one or, at the
most two, days a week at the latter. If the Bialystok campus becomes an
independent university, these lecturers will have to choose to which university
they wish to be attached. But under the present circumstances, few want
to move permanently to a location so far from the centre of decision-making.

One reason for this reluctance is the general assumption found throughout
the country that research teams in Warsaw and in Krakow, the former capital
and medieval university city, will get preferential treatment. Indeed, scientists
in Warsaw and Krakow are less apprehensive about granty than those in other
towns; their main fear is that Poland is ‘too small’ for the impartial distribution
of grants.

The new funding structure will also put in doubt the management role
of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Originally merely a learned society,
the academy was remodelled after the Second World War along Soviet lines,
with an extensive network of research institutes under its control. The
‘learned secretary’ of the academy was given ministerial rank, but at the
same time he became a state functionary responsible to the Prime Minister,
and not to his fellow academicians.

Polish scientists have long been unhappy with this situation. In 1981,
they began to draft a new charter for the academy, which among other things
would have put an end to the learned secretary’s quasi-political role. The
imposition of martial law on 13 December of the same year put this reform,
like so much else in Poland, into a state of suspended animation.

Work on the new charter has now resumed, with the full support of Kuznicki.
But it is not only his role which is now in question, but the whole form
and function of the academy. There is a growing lobby in the scientific
community that argues that an academy in the style of the Soviet Union is
an anachronism as Poland starts looking towards the West for its institutional
models.

The main argument is that all research institutions should become fully
independent, with the academy returning to its role as a club of eminent
scientists, similar to the Royal Society or the Academie Francaise.

At present, the academy administers most foreign exchanges. Until recently
it had to vet not only the academic but also the political credentials of
scientists hoping to take part in such exchanges. But now that political
control has disappeared, these exchanges could be negotiated just as easily
by the institutes themselves, with the academy maintaining at the most an
advisory role.

Some research, however, will continue to be directly funded through
the government. Medical research is an obvious candidate. Janusz Nau mann,
for example, is an expert in thy roid problems who has been in charge of
Poland’s post-Chernobyl follow-up studies. He says that the major part of
the programme – the monitoring of the 11 million children and 7 million
adults given stable iodine after the accident – will be wound up at the
end of the year. However, he is confident that the government will accept
his proposal to continue the most significant part of it under the auspices
of the Mother and Child Institute in Warsaw.

This programme entails the monitoring at five-yearly intervals, up to
the year 2010, of subjects born within nine months of the accident, to determine
to what extent pre-natal exposure to low-level radiation increases the probability
of cancer. This study, Naumann stressed, is of international importance.
‘My nation is too poor, too small,’ he said, ‘to keep something just to
¾±³Ù²õ±ð±ô´Ú.’

So far, there is no suggestion of international support for Naumann’s
project. However, his statement underlines the fact that Poland – including
Polish science – is now firmly setting its sights on the West. The teaching
of English, for example, is a high priority with an estimated 20 000 more
teachers of English needed. And scientific journals are as much in demand
– and as difficult to come by – as ever.

With domestic funding for science in doubt and inflation still soaring,
many scientists see their best hope as participating in Western ‘international’
research projects. CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, and
the European Space Agency are frequently mentioned. In contrast, little
is heard these days about the various Comecon joint research projects which
are still, at least officially, in existence.

The future of one of these projects, however, is of particular concern
to Poland: the Low-Temprerature High-Magnetic Field Laboratory in Wroclaw.
The laboratory receives 42 per cent of its funding from the Soviet Union,
25 per cent from both Poland and the German Democratic Republic, and the
remaining 8 per cent from Bulgaria. The academies of science of these countries
act as scientific trustees.

The change of regime in East Germany will not, in itself, alter the
status of the laboratory, since the (East) German Academy of Sciences has
seen no reason to pull out. But German unification will make it necessary
to renegotiate the laboratory’s founding statutes.

The scientists at Wroclaw would like to extend the activities of the
laboratory, turning it into a truly international centre, with Western,
as well as Eastern, partici pation. How far they are successful will provide
a measure of Poland’s success in integrating itself into the world scientific
community.

* * *

A tale of two researchers

WORKING scientists in Poland are more concerned these days about knowing
where their next year’s funding is going to come from than who owns their
institute. And it is this search for funds that has driven many younger
scientists to try to set up their own small science-related companies.

Poland’s short working day – typically, from 8.00 am to 3.00 pm with
no lunch-break – is an advantage here. Would-be entrepreneurs can remain
in their ‘official’ jobs (as long as they have one), and carry on a private
business in the evenings.

But despite its commitment to a mixed economy, Poland provides no practical
help in setting up small businesses. Many of the lumbering bureaucratic
procedures of the former regime are still in place.

Furthermore, most Polish scientists lack the knowledge and skills required
to cope with the problems of founding a company, as the case of two young
scientists working at the Institute of Sports Medicine in Warsaw shows.

Both scientists decided to go into business on their own, and, quite
independently, came up with the same idea: to manufacture items which are
in short supply in Polish laboratories since they have to be purchased from
Western suppliers using hard currency. Marek Daniewski decided to produce
separation columns for gas chromatography; Jaroslaw Wlodarczyk chose enzyme-testing
kits.

Both brought a few keen friends into partnership. But although both
started work at about the same time, Daniewski’s company, Chromtech, is
flourishing and is even contemplating export contracts to the west, while
Wlodarczyk’s KOT has been hard-pressed to find even a few hundred dollars
of pump-priming capital, and has not yet started production.

Part of the problem lies in the products themselves. Wlodarczyk’s kits
require health ministry approval before he can start production; yet without
a kit, he cannot have it tested for approval. But experience counts too:
it is very relevant that Daniewski and his two partners have each spent
extended periods in the West. Daniewski spent a total of six years in Britain,
the US and Canada, and his production process uses patents based on research
which he carried out with Western facilities.