Rector of the MUG comments on the Act 2.0

22.10.2018

Prof. Marcin Gruchała, M.D., Ph.D.

The first of the new regulations on how Polish universities will operate took effect in early October. Referred to as the Constitution for Science or Law 2.0, the Higher Education and Science Act of 20 July 2018 has now become law. With the new regulations in place, the academic year ahead will challenge the way our university is run and organised. Fundamental to the new Act is the transition from a quantitative assessment to a qualitative model of how science and education will be evaluated. The legislator’s main aim is to diversify universities and divide them into leading research, research and didactic and vocational universities with research universities receiving the bulk of the funding for science. It is expected that as schools improve their effectiveness and research excellence over the coming years, some will emerge as strong leaders and move up in the international university league tables.

The Constitution for Science promotes university autonomy and leaves schools responsible for how they want to be organised and operated. Once adopted in the statutes, the rules of organisation will strongly determine the university’s development, the funding it receives and, as a consequence, its position both at home and abroad. The new Act introduces fundamental changes. While faculties are no longer the basic units, the competence for running courses and powers for awarding the degree of doctor and habilitated doctor in the disciplines will now rest with the university as a whole. Minimum staffing limits will no longer apply and under Law 2.0 new courses will only be introduced if the scientific work has met research quality criteria. The reform allows for more flexible academic career paths with teachers working in didactic, research or research and didactic positions. Unlike the previous system of research assessment, the new model will evaluate the entire school’s scientific achievement in a given field as opposed to evaluating individual faculties. Universities will have to appoint collegial bodies to bring together academic teachers from different faculties who study a selected field. Under the Act the senate may delegate doctor and habilitated doctor degree awarding powers to a collegial body relevant for the study area. In addition, Law 2.0 introduces a new body into university structures. A university board will be set up with some of its members coming from outside the academic community.

Because it represents the entire university community, the senate will select the board’s members. The senate will consult the board and take the final decisions on the university’s development strategy. In addition, as of next academic year, doctoral programmes will be run by interdisciplinary doctoral schools. This is why last April a team was set up with responsibility for establishing the Medical University of Gdańsk’s Doctoral College. Its task is to ensure that the current third degree studies meet the new requirements as the new higher education and science law takes effect.

The university’s funding system will also change as a result of the new legislation. What were previously didactic grants and earmarked statutory grants will now become a single subvention. It will be up to the university authorities how the funds will be allocated and spent. While the regulations allow universities a lot of freedom in how the school will be organised, the responsibility for the university’s position and development now rests with its decision-making bodies, the rector and senate in particular. The tasks are demanding but it is our job to deal successfully with the challenges of the higher education reform. Let me assure you that transparency will be my top priority in implementing the new solutions which because they are so different from how the University has operated before, may be a concern to our community. It is our intention to keep the University’s traditional division into faculties and collegial decisions. At the next meeting I am going to ask the Senate to set up a special committee inviting a broad range of members to work on the University’s new statutes. The committee will be tasked with preparing a draft which I, in my legal capacity as rector, will ask the Senate to consider. Let us turn the Act’s rules and objectives into opportunities for our University to help it position itself as a modern and dynamically advancing organisation.

We should work to use the new tools and opportunities optimally and improve the Medical University of Gdańsk’s teaching and research effectiveness. I would like us to take advantage of the changes we have to make to achieve our main strategic goal which is to become a research university with a high international standing.

prof. Marcin Gruchała
Rector, Medical University of Gdańsk