Academics welcome launch of separate science and HE ministry

Polish academics and scientists have welcomed the new government’s move to separate the Ministry of Education and Science into a Ministry of Science and Higher Education and a Ministry of National Education, saying that science had been “hidden in the shadow of education”, writes Anna Rzhevkina for Science|Business.

The two new ministries were formally created in January. Dariusz Wieczorek, an electrical engineer, has assumed the role of the minister of science and higher education, while Barbara Nowacka, an IT specialist, is the minister of national education.

After the liberal Civic Platform won the election in 2023, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a letter, advocating for the return to the two separate ministries, saying school education and scientific research have different financing and management mechanisms. The Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland also appealed for the establishment of a “strong separate ministry” equipped with the financial tools to develop scientific research.
Full report on the Science|Business site