How to reform the Polish research evaluation system?

Emanuel Kulczycki, Marcin Korzen, and Przemysław Korytkowski published the article Toward and excellence-based research funding system: Evidence from Poland in the Journal of Informetrics.

The authors discussed the metrics for the period 2009–2012 used in the national research evaluation in Poland . The Polish system uses mostly parametric assessments in order to make the evaluation more objective and independent from its peers. The authors analysed data on one million research outcomes and the assessment results of 962 scientific units in the period 2009–2012.

This study aimed to determine how much data the research funding system needed to proceed with evaluation. The analysis revealed that many metrics taken into account in the evaluation are closely correlated. In the Polish system, not all the collected data are necessary to achieve the main goal of the system, namely the categorization of scientific units in terms of their research performance. The authors highlighted that there was a high correlation between performance, in terms of publications, and the scientific potential of a given scientific unit. Moreover, they provided recommendations and suggestions for science policy.