Members of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and members of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (PAU) welcome the announcement by the Minister of Science and Higher Education, Dariusz Wieczorek, to increase spending on scientific research and higher education in the state budget for 2024, according to a letter signed by PAN President Prof Marek Konarzewski and PAU President Prof Jan Ostrowski.

The presidents expressed their satisfaction with the announcement of a 30% pay rise for scientific employees and a 20% increase in the emoluments of non-scientific employees, as well as an increase in funding for the institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences by PLN 180 million. 

“However, we would like to point out that the announcements made by the Minister of Science and Higher Education lacked specific proposals to increase the budget of the National Centre of Science (NCN), whose systematic reduction is one of the main threats to the development of science in Poland. 

The current success rate in NCN competitions has fallen below 10%. This means that many valuable research projects are not implemented and the intellectual effort put into their preparation is wasted. Members of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and members of the PAU call for an increase in the NCN budget to a level that allows for the financing of 25% of considered research projects”, said the Presidents.