About the project

On October 30, 2019, the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, won the first competition of the Minister of Science and Higher Education “Excellence Initiative - Research University" program, taking third place.

- these words begin the evaluation of the AMU application, prepared by an international team of 15 experts who rated our university's proposals very highly.

The 1st "Excellence Initiative - Research University" program (ID-UB) is one of the most important aspects of the reform of higher education, introduced by the new Law on Higher Education and Science, known as the Constitution for Science. The aim of the program was to select and support universities striving to achieve the status of a research university, as well as being able to effectively compete with the best academic centers in Europe and in the world. Ultimately, 10 Polish universities were included in the first edition of the program for 2020-2026.

The project will be implemented in the years 2020-2026, during this period AMU will receive a subsidy increased by 10% of the funds allocated for 2019, i.e. PLN 49.9 million annually.

In line with the nature of the MNISW competition (the first Polish "Excellence Initiative"), research is the basis of all activities proposed under this Project - AMU aspires to become an important participant in research in the European Research Area, especially in Priority Research Areas.

AMU has identified 5 Priority Research Areas:

• POB 1 AgriEarth: Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Earth and Planetary Sciences- do podlinkowania
• POB 2 BioGenMol: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology- do podlinkowania
• POB 3 ChemMat: Chemistry, Materials Science- do podlinkowania
• POB 4 MathPhysComp: Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy, Computer Sciences - do podlinkowania
• POB 5 HumSoc: Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences- do podlinkowania

The final number of POBs was carefully matched to the most important determinant of a research university - the potential measured by the increase in the number of prestigious publications indexed in global bibliometric databases.

The project in the proposed form significantly strengthens the current, profound pro-quality changes, included, among others, in the new AMU Statute, the most important document of the University.

Recognizing scientific research as the key mission of AMU as a research university will significantly contribute to a stronger connection of research with educating students (research based learning), especially in second-cycle studies. It will also affect the quality of research conducted by doctoral students, and thus the quality of the doctoral dissertations prepared and, consequently, the quality of future academic staff.

AMU's main goal is to support and develop research at the highest level, which has an impact on the development of world science. Both the level of research and its impact on world science will be measured by standard bibliometric parameters enforced by the rules of the competition, as well as by expert judgment.

All the objectives and activities adopted in the Application are closely related to strengthening AMU as a reforming, restructuring and highly internationalized research university. The synergy of the proposed activities (primarily within the carefully identified Priority Research Areas, the development of which has been characterized by several indicators) with the University's current tasks, supported by cooperation with the best research centers in Europe, is to ensure its faster development and, consequently, a growing impact on the development of world science .

Research-intensive universities differ from teaching-oriented universities mainly in two basic parameters: the structure of scientific publications (i.e. their number and prestige, including normalized citation rates) and the structure of revenues, from which research is financed.

AMU candidates for the status of a "research university" in 2007-2017 had more publications, more prestigious publications, especially in the top 10% and 25% of journals in the Scopus database (according to CiteScore) - and more funds and a higher percentage of funds for research (in relation to to the entire budget) than all the universities participating in the ID-UB program, except for four: the University of Warsaw, the Jagiellonian University, the Warsaw University of Technology and the AGH University of Science and Technology.

AMU budget for research is systematically growing: from PLN 65.4 million in 2011 to PLN 109.2 million in 2017, and in terms of the growth rate of these funds, AMU is second only to the Jagiellonian University. The most important limitation of AMU research activity is the lower value of total research funds obtained from all external sources. It should be emphasized that this value is two and four times lower than in the case of two universities (UW and the Jagiellonian University) and two technical universities (PW and AGH). AMU also has a lower percentage share of research funds in the total operating budget (15.44% in 2017 compared to 32.59% for the University of Warsaw and 20.49% for the Jagiellonian University), although this share is systematically growing.

Two specific conclusions can be drawn from this comparison: funds for research activities at AMU will increase only if higher categories are awarded in the new evaluation of scientific achievements in 2021 by the Council of Scientific Excellence (DAM), and the so-called Competitive funds for research, obtained mainly from the NCN, will only increase with a greater number of grant applications and a higher success rate (and thus better quality of applications).

For a globally functioning research university, the number and percentage of publications produced in international co-authorship are of key importance. Analyzes show that such publications have a much greater international impact, are cited more often and are characterized by a higher discipline-standardized citation rate (FWCI).

A detailed analysis of the scientific achievements of our University and its "scientifically strongest disciplines" (for the years 2007-2017) according to the Scopus database (and the SciVal functionality) shows that AMU differs from the University of Warsaw and the Jagiellonian University mainly in the number of publications created in international cooperation and their average coefficient FWCI, as well as the number of publications in the top 10 percent of journals in terms of their citation percentile and publications in the top 10 percentile of journals. In the years 2007-2017, AMU staff published fewer scientific articles per employee, fewer articles were published in the best scientific journals, also fewer articles were written in international cooperation, and AMU publications were cited less often on average. For AMU, the number of scientific articles written in international cooperation compared to articles created in intra-institutional cooperation (i.e. authors writing AMU together with AMU authors) increased by 80% in the years 2007-2017, but for the University of Warsaw this number increased by 150%, and for the Jagiellonian University - by almost 200%. It should be remembered that AMU was subjected to stringent bibliometric requirements as part of the competition: for the project, the most important thing is the detailed level of the measures and their change over time, i.e. in the years 2020-2026.

The effective functioning of AMU in Europe requires a radical increase in the internationalization of research, seen primarily through international, prestigious, indexed scientific publications. And this is today the most important paradigm and the greatest challenge related to the functioning of AMU as a research university.

The AMU project as a research university, financed under rigorous outcome indicators, opens up new opportunities for our staff, doctoral students, students and administration of the University: internationalization of research and education becomes a real possibility, and the funds awarded in a competition under POBs and the entire university will give an opportunity, for the first time in 30 years, for the full-fledged, wide participation of AMU in science at the highest world level. The challenge is constantly subjecting to international, and therefore global rules of the game - and the implementation of the assumed strategic goals of the project, detailed in the indicators, in accordance with the terms of the competition.