Polish science - massively underfunded

Every scientific research grouping in the world complains about a lack of money, but Poland really takes the biscuit!

2,500 researchers per one million inhabitants - it ranks third lowest in the 32-member OECD

Poland spends a mere 0.64% of GDP on R&D, against 1.85% in the EU as a whole, America's 2.8% or Japan's 3.5%. Just over a half of the Polish total comes directly from the public purse. The EU and industry account for the rest.

The govt's professed aim is for gross R&D spending to reach between 1.45-1.9% of GDP by 2020.

Wow.

Polish scientists do very well on mathematical modelling - where they need a pencil and paper and a half-decent computer.

AND YET ON A PERHAPS UNRELATED TOPIC ... in the Warsaw area, I remember reading, they outperform the UK average in cancer treatment (because they don't skimp on cheap tests, like NHS doctors routinely do). So, Polish professionals are not lacking brains - just money.

its all Komorowski's fault.......

Not really. Saboteurs like Maciej Giertych (Roman's father) still got to call themselves scientists until comparatively recently - there's a whole backlog of academics with tenure from the days when science was heavily politicised. The problem is systemic and needs time. But it is definitely improving - I live a few hundred yards down the road from the University of Poznan Supercomputing faculty and some great stuff is happening there.

And Warsaw Polytechnic is buzzing too.