Science at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin - current state and perspectives

In 2024, the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, in accordance with the strategy of the development of the Catholic University of Lublin "Initiative of Excellence - a research university", will focus mainly on the internationalization of scientific research and further professionalization of the administrative support of research activity, emphasizes the Vice-Rector for Science and Human Resources, Sister Dr. Beata Zarzycka, Professor of KUL. She also reminds us that the evaluation of the quality of scientific activity carried out by independent, including foreign, experts in 2017-2021 confirmed that the Catholic University of Lublin belongs to the prestigious scientific centers in Poland.

The article of the Vice Rector will be published in the current issue of "Przeglad Uniwersytecki", while its publication on the website of the Catholic University of Lublin is connected, among other things, with the Polish Science Day, which falls on February 19.

Every year, I award financial prizes for the best scientific publications, and this year, for the first time, also for obtaining a research grant. The prizes are awarded on a competitive basis, from applications submitted by individual faculties and scientific disciplines. Articles published in journals indexed in the Scopus database and monographs in prestigious foreign publications are eligible.

In this year's edition, 66 journal publications, 10 monographs and two fellowships were awarded. In total, 101 scientists were honored. This is a large group. I wanted to recognize the publication achievements of our researchers.

What is the state of science?

Let's look at the scientific activity of the University in the perspective of the evaluation of the quality of research conducted at the University, carried out by the experts of the Commission for the Evaluation of Science and covering the period 2017-2021. The scientific activity of the 14 disciplines was evaluated. Three disciplines have an A+ category (literary studies, theological sciences, canon law), six have an A category (philosophy, history, linguistics, arts sciences, legal sciences, pedagogy) and five have a B+ category (economics and finance, biological sciences, political and administrative sciences, sociological sciences, psychology).

Academic categories are an important parameter for higher education institutions. They determine the entitlements of the institution in terms of system, scientific and program aspects. They give the possibility to use the title of an academic and research university, condition the authorization to grant doctoral and postdoctoral degrees, allow full autonomy of the entity in the creation of faculties, in particular of a general academic profile, and condition the amount of funding received for scientific research.

In 2023, three new scientific disciplines were created: medical biology, biblical sciences and family sciences. These disciplines were granted the authority to confer degrees under Article 226a of the Law on Higher Education and Science.

In summary, the University has 17 rights to award doctoral and postdoctoral degrees in six scientific disciplines (humanities, medicine, social sciences, natural and life sciences, theology and family sciences), of which 14 disciplines have scientific categories of A+, A or B+.

The quality of scientific research at the KUL is high

The evaluation confirmed the high quality of scientific research carried out at the Catholic University of Lublin. The university meets the requirements set out in Article 388 of the Law on Higher Education and Science to apply for the competition 'Initiative of Excellence - Research University'. Thus, the Catholic University of Lublin was one of six universities that met the requirements of this competition (apart from the Catholic University of Lublin, these were Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Jagiellonian University, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, University of Warsaw, University of Wroclaw) and one of 27 entities in Poland (taking into account all types of higher education institutions).

It is also worth mentioning that according to the "Perspektywy 2023" ranking, in the criterion "Evaluation of scientific activity" the Catholic University of Lublin received 76.35 points and is the second in Poland among universities (the leader is the University of Warsaw with 77.05 points). The criterion "Evaluation of Scientific Activity" is the sum of the marks (categories) given to individual disciplines, which were evaluated by the Commission for the Evaluation of Science in a given University, weighted by the number of employees engaged in scientific activity per full-time working hour related to the conduct of scientific activity in the evaluated disciplines (the so-called N-number) and related to the total number of these employees - which accounts for 12 percent of the final score in the ranking.

Speaking of rankings...

The Catholic University of Lublin has again been included in the 2023 edition of THE World University Rankings, the most prestigious and recognized ranking of higher education institutions in the world, which evaluates teaching, research, knowledge transfer to the environment and internationalization of universities. In this year's edition of the ranking, 37 universities from Poland were classified. The Catholic University of Lublin was placed in the 1201-1500 group.

What's in the near future?

Current efforts are being made to develop and improve mechanisms and tools to support the development of research. Detailed actions are included in the development strategy of the Catholic University of Lublin "Excellence Initiative - Research University" developed for 2024-2026. In 2024, the University will focus especially on the internationalization of scientific research and further professionalization of administrative support for scientific activity.

In the area of internationalization, the priorities will be the development and implementation of a system of study visits to research centers to foster cooperation and explore new areas of research, the development and implementation of a system of recruitment of foreign experts - leaders of good practice in research, and the creation of a program of internships for academic staff and doctoral students at leading foreign universities. As regards the professionalization of administrative support for scientific activity, priority will be given to improving the rules for recruitment of academic teachers and research staff on the basis of measurable quality criteria, improving the rules for quality-based remuneration of academic teachers and research staff who carry out high-quality scientific activity, and developing a system of support for young researchers starting their careers in higher education and science.

The Openness Policy of the Catholic University of Lublin will be implemented, scientific journals and the Catholic University of Lublin Publishing House will be developed in accordance with international standards appropriate to individual scientific disciplines. An important activity planned for 2024 will be the implementation of a reporting and registration system for scientific needs in the form of an IT solution developed by the Warsaw University of Technology and the Sages Sp z o.o. company, as well as the further development of the ALMA library and information system in cooperation with the largest libraries in Poland.

The support of the scientific activities of the University will, of course, continue in the form of internal grant competitions, financing of the editorial board of scientific journals and the costs of publishing scientific publications in the form of articles and monographs.

Staff publication activity

It is very encouraging to see that the publication activity of our staff continues unabated, in particular the publication of research results in journals and publications indexed in international databases. Although 2022 was the first year of the new evaluation perspective planned for 2022-2025, we did not observe a significant decrease in the publication activity of our researchers. In 2022, the researchers of the Catholic University of Lublin published 501 papers indexed in the Scopus database, compared to 495 in 2021, the best year so far. The number of publications for 2023 is also very good, currently standing at 496 and gradually increasing as new papers are published.