University of Gdańsk Rector, prof. dr hab. Piotr Stepnowski, talks to UG Spokesperson Magdalena Nieczuja-Goniszewska.

The calendar year is behind us, and another academic year has recently begun. How do you assess the past year of 2023?

It has been a good year for our scientists - it started with the results of the evaluation, which went better than could have been predicted judging by the state I found when I took over as Rector, thanks to the really hard work of the faculties and Vice-Rector Laskowski, the Office of Science and the evaluation teams. Apart from that, our scientists took up many research challenges that were of great, sometimes groundbreaking significance - let me give as examples the rapidly developing research into cancer vaccines or the spectacular discoveries and implementations related to digital security carried out by our excellent team of quantum physicists. We were also delighted to learn that Professor Krzysztof Liberek has been awarded the so-called Polish Nobel Prize, i.e. the Prize of the Foundation for Polish Science, for his research into chaperone proteins. In addition to the experimental sciences and life sciences, the humanities and social sciences are also thriving. Last year's winner of the Jan Hevelius Prize was our eminent economist, Professor Jacek Zaucha. Numerous prizes in the fields of culture, language, and regional history have been awarded to our humanists. Unfortunately, these successes were not followed by the Ministry of Education and Science recognition of the university. In this respect, I consider the past year to have been a difficult one. It would probably be understandable if the effects of the economic crisis had equally affected the entire academic community. However, this was not the case. While our university was receiving successive rejections from the Ministry regarding the applications to increase funding, a gigantic stream of funds was being transferred to other units according to, to say the least, a highly politicised key. Moreover, this money was going not only to development and infrastructure but also to personnel costs. I hope this period is now behind us and that we will finally see fair competition for university funding.

You said about investment funding - it is hard not to notice that our university, which has the most modern campus in Pomerania and northern Poland, has slowed down on the last straight, in the construction of the Sports Centre.

Here, unfortunately, inflation and the vast jumping increase in the price of materials and labour in the construction market are also to blame. As a result, the contractor selected in the tender procedure to carry out the investment withdrew. Numerous efforts to obtain funding from the Ministry to cover the difference between the sharply increased market price and the investment estimated cost have also failed.

What will happen to the Centre? Will it be built?

Yes, but in a slightly altered version, adapted to actual needs. We have divided the entire investment into stages. The first of these will involve the construction of a sports hall in a 'design and build' procedure. At the beginning of the new year, we should select a contractor for this project. I am determined to see this stage through to completion. We have excellent university athletes - some of the best in Poland, true enthusiasts who find time to train in addition to their studies. There are Olympic athletes and world champions among our sportsmen and sportswomen - with them in mind, it is worth investing in academic sports. I am also aware of numerous employee initiatives for sports activities, so the demand for this facility in our community is not only about sports education. This is why I have decided to subsidise the sports card programme.

We are reaching for trophies in sports without having a decent sports base - it's a bit like the fact that we have great mathematicians, physicists, quantum scientists working with Nobel Prize winners Anton Zeilinger and Alain Aspect, and the old maths building is ancient and doesn't look like a place where you do world-class research.

Part of this building is being renovated and looks really great. Unfortunately - again, we come back to the ministry - despite verbal promises, we have not received funds to complete this investment. I very much hope that the resort's new authorities will be willing to negotiate sufficient funding for this much-needed project. With this in mind - to show our perspective and the previous government's neglect of the scientific sphere - I invited the newly elected deputies and senators of Pomerania from all political options to a meeting at the University of Gdańsk in November. At this meeting, I presented our achievements, successes, research and teaching development, and, above all, articulated the most urgent needs of our university - mainly the immediate strengthening of the salary fund and increased investment and development funds. I hope this meeting will bring positive changes for the university and for higher education in Poland as a whole.

Nevertheless, you have managed to set aside funds to introduce and develop programmes designed to encourage and support our scientists in research and collaboration. Was it worth investing our - as you pointed out - meagre resources when there are so many nationwide external programmes supporting science, i.e. projects and grants?

First of all, it is always worth investing in people. And it is true that our scientists have an excellent track record in winning both national and international projects. In the latter, we are the undisputed leader in Poland, considering the funds raised per scientist. Nevertheless, I believe that this does not absolve me, as Rector, from the particular concern for 'my' employees and their research. That is why we have implemented many programmes to encourage our community to conduct competitive research, publish in the best periodicals, exchange scientists abroad, purchase specialised equipment, and do many other activities. In the small grants programme for young scientists and doctoral students alone, we have awarded over one hundred and eighty grants, totalling nearly two and a half million PLN. In programmes preparing for the first grant application and those supporting the acquisition of European funding, we co-financed a total of one hundred and fifteen applications to the amount of two million two hundred thousand zlotys. Under the programme for young leaders, providing funds for establishing the first research group, we awarded four grants of approximately half a million. We also provided significant support to scientific journals published at UG - six editorial offices received funding to the tune of one hundred and sixty thousand zlotys. Finally, we have provided continuous support for the purchase of scientific and research equipment, without which there can be no modern and competitive scientific research. In this respect, the university has supported UG researchers with more than five million zlotys. I want to emphasise that all these investments took place at a time of galloping inflation and in the face of gross underfunding of our university by the Ministry of Education and Science. Apart from our apparent determination not to fall out of the global pro-quality race taking place in Polish and world science, it was also possible due to the full understanding of the Bursar and her colleagues of how the priorities of a young and ambitious university should be shaped. This is why there was no doubt that, despite the unfavourable provisions of Polish law regarding additional remuneration for project managers in Horizon Europe, we implemented our own programme called Bonus on Horizon UG, under which we try to compensate at least a little for the hardship of the projects carried out. There were, in fact, many more support programmes. I am proud of our unique Programme of Support for the Gdańsk Humanities, which has provided more than three million zlotys to our humanists. We have launched many such initiatives in the past three years. I have decided to summarise them all on the website, where I present the programme for the next term.

You very often emphasise the importance of the internationalisation of the university. We started last year with the information about an award related to these processes, given to the Vice-Rector for International Cooperation, Professor Anna Jurkowska-Zeidler. Have we lost this momentum in the past year, or, on the contrary, are we growing? How do you assess this?

Internationalisation is, of course, not a process that happens only in one part of the university. Nor is it about signing as many agreements as possible, although indeed, that may have been the case at one time. International cooperation agreements are very important for us, but the most important thing is the systemic networking of multidimensional student, academic, or administrative international exchange. It seems to me that the measures taken at the beginning of this term of office in this regard are producing the desired results. I would, therefore, say that not only have we not slowed down, but on the contrary, we are gaining momentum. At the beginning of the year, we assumed the presidency of the European Coastal University alliance, which has been enriched by adding three more universities - the University of Algarve from Portugal, the University of Parthenope from Italy, and the Nord University from Norway. Our teams within this international alliance are successfully working in numerous areas, and in many of these areas, our university is the undisputed leader. We are working on joint educational programmes at all levels, developing various forms of academic mobility, and creating a space for mutual cooperation between our cities, without which it is difficult to think of a systemic partnership. The development of staff competencies has also become a vital element, especially for our administration, which participates in language courses and increasingly takes advantage of the opportunity for short-term trips to friendly centres for so-called Staff Weeks. There is currently no department at the university whose representatives are not on the working teams of our partnership. The constant meetings and the monitoring of activities show how large this organism is and how successful it has become as part of our university. But internationalisation is not just about our SEA-EU alliance. It is the daily hard work of creating mobility opportunities, primarily through the Erasmus programme. Thanks to the commitment of Vice-Rector Anna Jurkowska-Zeidler and her entire office, last year we broke an absolute record, obtaining over three million euros in funding under the KA131 action, which ranked us third in Poland! Internationalisation also means cooperation with researchers from abroad. To support this process, especially for young researchers, we have introduced a programme of foreign internships - three-month stays in the best research centres in the world. This year, nine people have already benefited from it, and we have supported them with more than half a million zlotys. I am also pleased that scientists and lecturers from abroad are more and more willing to visit our university. This is, of course, partially a result of the UG Visiting Professors programme, which we have introduced and financed and which has already enabled twenty-nine academics from sixteen countries from all over the world to visit the UG. It is important that internationalisation also takes place here at home, as some say. Our community has the opportunity to learn about research conducted worldwide, sometimes showing familiar issues from an entirely new perspective. I feel that we have opened up to the world more than before. This is also reflected in our excellent results in world rankings.

You talk about opening up to the world. There is still a war going on behind our border. Students at the University of Gdańsk, with the help of the university authorities and faculties, set up the largest collection point in Pomerania in the first days after the outbreak of war to collect donations and aid, both for war refugees and those fighting in Ukraine. Meanwhile, another year passes, and we have our own problems - there were elections, and there is inflation. Don't you think we already feel a bit tired of the topic as a society and perhaps the academic community?

Indeed, the topic of war is not as frequent now as it was a year ago. Although I am not a psychologist, I think it is a natural defence reflex because we are still - whether we want it or not - living in a state of tension related to the fact that right next to our border, there is a war in Ukraine. There is unrest on the border with Belarus, which is unpredictable as a neighbour. At the University of Gdańsk, however, we have not stopped providing assistance to Ukraine, but now this assistance is geared towards academic relations. A few months after the outbreak of war, we held the first international conference on this aid, which we organised jointly with the National Agency for Academic Exchange. This year, we repeated the conference, but whereas we previously talked about emergency aid, this year, the discussion was more about the assistance that would be needed after the war to rebuild higher education in Ukraine and integrate it seamlessly into the Western European education system. In this context, we also made efforts to establish systemic bilateral cooperation with the Mechnikov University in Odessa. Thanks to the tremendous commitment of Vice-Rector Arnold Kłonczyński, we obtained nearly one million zlotys from NAWA to support this partnership. Literally one week ago, we received a decision on funding at a similar level for the next year of our cooperation. The project concerns collaboration between scientists, joint research and exchanges of students and staff. I am also proud of the fact that we have managed to integrate Odessa University into the SEA-EU structures - for the time being as an associate partner, but my ambition is to convince the European Commission to allow Ukraine to participate fully in this programme. My first conversations with the former EU Commissioner Maria Gabriel on this subject gave me considerable hope. We also continue to hold Polish language courses at the university, and the Film Centre has organised a screening of Ukrainian films and a meeting with Igor Tracz, who is delivering aid to the stricken areas, as well as an exhibition of photographs from these places. We also agreed to extend the use of one of our dormitories, which houses around three hundred refugee women with their children, to the City of Sopot. As you can see - our community still remembers and helps.

You mentioned rankings earlier. Please explain what these positions actually give us, apart from a moment of glory. Especially in the world rankings - after all, they won't cause a sudden, massive influx of foreigners in paid studies?

Whether we like it or not, rankings are there and strongly influence the sphere of opinion-formers. Their results are published and widely commented on. In Poland, it is still my impression that we try to play down their role. Meanwhile, the methodology of such rankings as the Times Higher Education or QS World University Rankings is quite complicated - these are not simple counts of the number of students, researchers, or publications. The complex ranking algorithms are supposed to show the dynamics of a university's scientific and didactic development, its internationalisation, environmental or equality aspects, and its impact on the socio-economic environment. Cooperation with this environment is essential, as it is where our students must gain experience, starting during their studies through internships, and where scientists can conduct applied research that will bring tangible results, for example, in the form of patents used in medical treatment or the creation of solutions for the economy or the increasingly important offshore sector. Our recent actions in this regard, thanks to the commitment of Vice-Rector Sylwia Mrozowska and her subordinate units, fully professionalise the process, safeguarding the interests of both our researchers and the university. We may agree or disagree with the methodology or the results of the rankings, but the truth, which we cannot escape from, is that university candidates look at these results. Similarly, academics do. They usually undertake cooperation within the framework of partner universities, but it is natural that they are always more willing to enter into collaboration with a university ranked in the world rankings than with a university that does not even decide to undergo a ranking assessment. As for the Perspektywy ranking, on the other hand, this is the most crucial national ranking of universities. And here, too, the methodology is changing just as the world and education are changing. I observe how every year, apart from the basic general data on universities, which are taken from POLON, other aspects, which I mentioned above, are also checked. The faculties themselves are also assessed, not just the university as a whole. This ranking is widely reported in the media all over the country, as it not only forms part of a good competition between universities but is also an indication for university applicants. I am all the more pleased that in a relatively short period of time, we have managed to move up so significantly in this ranking - this year, in the classification of universities, we were ranked fourth, behind Warsaw University, Jagiellonian University and Adam Mickiewicz University. This is a truly tremendous success for our UG!  

The issue of evaluation of universities comes up again and again in our conversation - evaluations, projects whose funding is also based on evaluation, national rankings, international rankings, etc… In a while, there will be rectoral elections at universities, including at UG, where you are running for a second term. Now is the time to take stock of the previous years and look more carefully at what is behind us. To put it jokingly - the life of a rector is no piece of cake....

But I like it... OK, maybe I don't like being under a constant barrage of opinions because it is well known that the job of a rector managing the largest university in Pomerania, with responsibility for almost four thousand employees and twenty-two thousand students, is a burden of sorts, not a string of uninterrupted successes. When I started my rector's term three years ago, after years of managing the Faculty of Chemistry and bearing shared responsibility for the University of Gdańsk as Vice-Rector for Science, I knew that we had to change a lot at the university and that very intensive work was ahead of us. We had to put the management issues in order, and restore to the faculties and deans the right to decide on the affairs of their units, which we have done, for example, by restoring the Faculty Councils, transferring powers to them on many issues. We undertook to sort out the sizable inequalities in remuneration that had historically built up in past years. I don't want to go back to that term, but I was confronted with many issues that few of us - even in the rectorial authorities - were aware of. Now is the time to take stock of the past three years. I have implemented the vast majority of my election programme. This would not have been possible had it not been for the cooperation with the Vice-Rectors, Deans, and the entire university community. Yes, the entire community - because although it sounds like a cliché - without the commitment of the academic, teaching, and administrative staff, no change would have been possible. There is still a lot ahead of us. My intentions for the coming years, as well as a summary of the passing term, will be on the UG election website.

What, then, has not been done?

These are smaller things, although I'm not saying they're unimportant - for example, we didn't manage to reinstate the Baltic Science Festival. It turned out that without resources from the ministry, which has significantly reduced funding for science festivals, it is difficult to do another event involving many people and considerable costs after Open Days and picnics, Brain Days, and Biologists' Night. A lot of things we have just started to implement, to improve. That is why I recommend the documents I mentioned - an account of activities during the term of office and plans for the future.

At the end of our conversation, please tell us more about the direction the Fahrenheit University Union is heading in. As the originator and creator, I know that you are committed and convinced by this idea. Do you think you have succeeded in convincing the academic community of the University of Gdańsk of it?

We are invariably moving towards consolidation. Nothing has changed here. Have I managed to convince the community? Judging from the activities we are undertaking together in an increasing number of areas – it seems most people understand what the idea of the Union is about and what benefits it will bring us. Consolidating activities and educational and scientific goals is a difficult task that takes time. We need to be aware that in this process, the university will not lose its identity and autonomy but will be able to use the idea of the federation as a great hallmark, a kind of critical mass that will allow Gdańsk to be seen as one of the strongest academic centres in Poland and beyond. But we also already have the concretes: a joint library system integrating our resources and modern IT systems gradually being implemented at UG. Take, for example, the Fahrenheit Science Picnic, which integrates the communities of the three universities and the people of Gdańsk, and which not only gave us a lot of fun and an opportunity to look at the activities of our scientific circles, but also provided a sense of community in a relaxed, positive atmosphere. The aftermath of the collaboration is also the newly established FarU Women's Club, bringing together female scientists and administrative staff from all three universities. I recently attended the first conference organised by the ladies; I am very impressed by the activities they are carrying out and what has been achieved so far regarding gender equality. For UG, the University Union also means an integrated system for the electronic management of the university, i.e. the introduction of the successful eUniversity system. Of course, like any new system, it first of all requires patience and a positive attitude during implementation because what is new, unfortunately, usually arouses resistance and reluctance. But - interestingly - during the implementation of the system, we could notice that the newly established Student Services Employee Association Forum plays its role very well. Thanks to the cooperation of the administration staff, we manage to solve problems, and even if we don't always agree on everything, for all of us, the University of Gdańsk is not just another place of work, but truly our university, our community, which is worth making an effort for so that it works better and better, and so that we can be really proud of it.

Thank you for the conversation.

Thank you as well.