3% dla nauki, 100% dla Polski
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3% for Science, 100% for Poland
2026-05-08 09:15:113% for Science, 100% for Poland
Petition for Increased Funding for Science
“Science is at the foundation of all progress that eases human life and reduces suffering.”
Maria Skłodowska-Curie
Scientific development must not be treated as a luxury good — it is a prerequisite for stable civilizational, social, and economic progress. Science enables us to build a strong state, a resilient society, and a knowledge-based economy. To achieve this, the scientific sector must be adequately funded, especially in an era of instability caused by the war beyond our eastern border, compounded by the pandemic and climate crises. This situation calls for bold and responsible decisions that will allow Poland to fully harness the potential of its scientific community and researchers in the face of contemporary global challenges.
On the Day of Polish Science, politicians themselves emphasized that scientists “constantly forge new paths, making the impossible possible”¹. Many of us perceive scientific work as both the fulfilment of a passion and a service to the public good. Yet passion, mission, and prestige alone do not pay bills or support families. What we need is not merely recognition or ceremonial praise, but tangible support that enables the effective use of the enormous potential within Polish science. Unfortunately, despite ambitious declarations made by successive governments, the Polish political class has consistently ignored this need. Over the past two decades, the share of GDP allocated annually by the state to science and higher education has steadily declined².
Today, total public and private expenditure on research and development amounts to only 1.41% of GDP (compared with an EU average of 2.24%, and more than 3.5% in the world’s five leading countries in this field). We therefore call on the government to take decisive action to increase spending on science to 3% of GDP by 2030 through direct public investment and systemic incentives encouraging businesses to expand investment in research and development. This appeal continues the petition launched in 2025, which gathered more than 6,600 signatures but whose demands unfortunately remain unfulfilled³. We call for any planned increases in science funding to prioritize the following areas.
Demand 1. Employees of the scientific sector must earn a living wage Public attention was recently drawn to a job advertisement published in January by one of the institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences. A candidate holding a PhD and experienced in operating advanced research equipment was offered only the statutory minimum wage (PLN 4,806 gross)⁴. According to the current regulation of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education⁵, the minimum base salary for a person beginning employment in academia after obtaining a doctoral degree, in the position of assistant professor (adiunkt), amounts to PLN 7,044.50 gross — less than 73% of the average salary in the enterprise sector⁶ (PLN 9,652.19 gross, March 2026 data). In many research institutes, the minimum salary for a PhD holder employed as an assistant exceeds the minimum wage by merely PLN 19.
It is difficult to describe employment in science as attractive when salaries are substantially lower, while entry requirements — including the necessity of obtaining an advanced academic degree — are significantly higher than in alternative career paths. Unsurprisingly, today only 25% of academic teachers are under the age of 40⁷. Politicians who have ignored this issue for decades are, in effect, overseeing the gradual dismantling of the scientific sector.
At the same time, it must be emphasized that scientific work would not be possible without the support of administrative, technical, and auxiliary staff. Their salaries are not regulated by ministerial ordinance and are therefore often limited to the statutory minimum wage. The work of qualified specialists within the scientific sector must be properly remunerated, even if it is not strictly research-oriented. For this reason, the principal demand of this petition is to link salaries in science to market rates.
We call for amendments to the Ministry’s salary regulations so that every person holding a doctoral degree and employed in a scientific position — regardless of the type of institution or specific post — receives at least the average salary in the enterprise sector. Such indexation should be accompanied by annual adjustments preserving parity between these indicators. Moreover, any salary increase mechanism must encompass all employees of the scientific sector, irrespective of their role, since their work is inseparably connected to the work of researchers.
Demand 2. Stable and dignified conditions for students and doctoral candidates
There is a growing risk that scientific careers in Poland will soon be accessible only to a privileged minority — those whose family background provides sufficient economic or social capital to compensate for low salaries. This threatens the egalitarian character of Polish science. Inequality of opportunity is already visible at the university level. Nearly 60% of students both study and work simultaneously, while the proportion of students whose parents do not possess higher education degrees continues to decline⁸. The necessity of paid employment affects especially those from less affluent backgrounds and significantly limits the time they can devote to study and research. As a consequence, society loses the knowledge and innovations these individuals might otherwise create.
Despite earlier promises by the Ministry⁹, key social infrastructure and financial support for students remain inadequate. For example, the income threshold for social scholarships is so restrictive that even students whose parents earn the minimum wage are often ineligible. We therefore call for a realistic revision of the income threshold for social assistance scholarships and for the expansion of adequate social infrastructure. Particular attention should be paid to affordable public cafeterias, urgent renovation of existing student dormitories, construction of new dormitories, and ensuring low accommodation costs in all student housing facilities.
A separate barrier to entering academia concerns the conditions offered to doctoral candidates. The doctoral scholarship before the mid-term evaluation currently amounts to PLN 3,570.50 gross. This implies either that the Polish state considers doctoral training to be merely a supplementary activity, or that a qualified individual holding a master’s degree and admitted to a doctoral school does not deserve even the statutory minimum wage for full-time work (PLN 4,806 gross). Furthermore, many doctoral candidates engaged full-time in research10 point out that, lacking formal employment contracts, they are deprived of basic employment protections and creditworthiness. This model — based on scholarship agreements rather than employment contracts — raises serious concerns regarding compliance with principles of equal treatment in the labour market.
In light of this, we call for doctoral scholarships to be set at no less than the statutory minimum wage. We further demand that doctoral candidates performing full-time duties related to their doctoral research be granted the option to choose between employment contracts and scholarship-based arrangements.
Demand 3. Researchers must have the means to conduct research
In Poland, researchers face not only inadequate salaries, but also serious obstacles to conducting research and development. To genuinely strengthen Polish science, it is essential to steadily increase institutional core funding based on reliable evaluation mechanisms, so that competitive grants complement rather than substitute stable personnel policies. At the same time, robust support for the National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki, NCN) is crucial for fundamental research. As we emphasized in the previous petition, NCN “is a pillar of quality and independence in Polish scientific research, distributing research funding in a transparent and reliable manner”³. According to the World Bank report Innovation Rising 2026¹¹, increasing NCN funding constitutes a key step toward strengthening innovation in Poland. The government itself, in the Poland Development Strategy 2035¹², identified as one of its priorities the provision of “funding for the National Science Centre at a level ensuring that the average success rate in NCN competitions does not fall below 25%.”
Despite these declarations, systematic increases in funding remain absent. The authorities also fail to provide sufficient resources for maintaining key research infrastructure, leading to public appeals concerning the protection of the radio telescope in Toruń¹³, the Maria research reactor¹⁴, and the research vessel Oceania¹⁵. Poland also lacks effective funding mechanisms for research projects at intermediate levels of technological readiness — projects that qualify neither as basic research (funded by NCN) nor as implementation-oriented research (funded by the National Centre for Research and Development).
This further undermines the innovative potential of Polish science. We therefore call for adequate and stable funding for fundamental, applied, and implementation-oriented research, as well as for the maintenance of critical research infrastructure. In particular, we appeal for an additional PLN 1 billion to be allocated to NCN in the 2027 state budget, alongside a long-term funding trajectory ensuring a 25% success rate in NCN grant competitions.
1. https://www.gov.pl/web/nauka/dzien-nauki-polskiej--historia-z-ktorej-jestesmy-dumni-i-przyszlosc-ktora-ksztaltujemy 2. https://forumakademickie.pl/prof-piotr-sankowski-bez-nauki-nie-zrobimy-ani-kroku-dalej/ 3.https://www.petycjeonline.com/list_otwarty_do_prezydenta_rp_marszaka_sejmu_rp_marszaka_senatu_rp_prezesa_rady_ministrow_oraz_wiceprezesow_rady_ministrow_w_sprawie_finansowania_nauki_w_tym_zwaszcza_narodowego_centrum_nauki#form 4. https://www.money.pl/gospodarka/prestizowy-polski-instytut-szuka-asystenta-za-pensje-minimalna-w-sieci-oburzenie-7247559962101984a.html 5.https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/download.xsp/WDU20260000525/O/D20260525.pdf 6.https://ssgk.stat.gov.pl/Wynagrodzenia_i_swiadczenia_spoleczne.html 7. https://x.com/LKierznowski/status/1897606949669155237 8. https://www.gov.pl/web/nauka/podsumowanie-projektu-eurostudent-8 9. https://www.gov.pl/web/nauka/nowe-fundusze-poprawiaja-warunki-zycia-studentow-i-doktorantow 10. https://naukawpolsce.pl/aktualnosci/news%2C112189%2Cscience-polska-nie-jest-kraj-dla-doktorantow.html 11. https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/c087e1591780498c32e9939776b3b974-0080012026/original/RER11-01-1.pdf 12. https://www.gov.pl/web/fundusze-regiony/strategia-rozwoju-polski-do-2035-r- 13. https://naukawpolsce.pl/aktualnosci/news%2C109908%2Ctorun-umk-walczy-o-zmiane-decyzji-resortu-nauki-o-braku-finansowania-dla 14. https://www.money.pl/gospodarka/klopoty-finansowe-jedynego-reaktora-jadrowego-w-polsce-7104531974408960a.html 15. https://oko.press/statek-badawczy-oceania-wplywa-na-spokojne-wody-ministerstwo-obiecuje-przywrocic-finansowanie Top of Form
Łukasz Okruszek