A conversation with Professor Wojciech Nowak, Rector of the Jagiellonian University.

Professor, you have won this year's election of the rector of the Jagiellonian University and this way you manage the best Polish university. You declare you believe that the JU can join the leading universities in Europe. How do you want to achieve this?

What I declare is that we will keep developing and try approach these major centres. A position at their forefront is not achievable in the near future regardless of our determination and qualifications. What is of crucial importance here is the economic realities, and we are not capable of changing those. Research results and  publications of some of our scientists are absolutely competitive not only in Europe but also in the world. Unfortunately, these are still isolated examples, which places us only in the fourth hundred in the most serious world rankings of universities. The criteria applied in them strongly promote universities boasting Nobel Prize winners. As we do not have them, we lose a lot of evaluation points. We are successfully making up for a huge backlog of the last half-century when Polish scholars, including myself, went abroad, just because they could find proper conditions for scientific research only there. In recent years, the JU has significantly expanded the research infrastructure, thereby improving the working environment for researchers. We also succeed in convincing the academic community that not every scientist must simultaneously be involved in teaching. Conditions enabling to focus on research have been created for the best scientists. Therefore, I have no doubt that more and more research competitive to that done in the world will be carried out here.

You yourself are a surgeon, the first medic managing the university in more than half a century. How will this practically affect the goals you set for yourself as rector?

I hope that my determination in action, especially in difficult moments, which I learned in operating rooms, will be useful. Jagiellonian University Medical College is facing many challenges, but our priority is the construction of a new research hospital. We are prepared for it from the formal perspective. Now, we will have to face difficult discussions concerning funding of this project with the Ministry of Health.

The JU has been expanding the infrastructure for the development of life science for years. Is the response to these efforts of investors from the field of economy satisfying for you?

Certainly not entirely. Strategic investors have still not appeared. We have built Lifescience Park, which is prepared for carrying out advanced research in the field of biotechnology, biomedicine, biology, chemistry, pharmacology, physics, nanotechnology and environmental protection. We educate high-level professionals from a wide range of these sciences, so now we are waiting for a right motion on the part of investors. We have done a lot, but perhaps we need to better inform the industry of the base prepared for them. However, we realize that attracting big investors is a long-term process.


How you would like to mark your presence on the list of already 305 names of the JU rectors?

The competition is really big and the 650-year history of the university obliges, but it does not overwhelm me. I believe that I can manage to ensure a qualitative progress in the functioning of the university. As rector I have no influence, whatsoever, on whether a brilliant scientific work will be created in one of our labs. But, I can do a lot for a young person who has a great scientific idea. Especially, when it comes to facilitating the implementation of this idea, and to providing assistance of the administration of the university. A visible progress in the functioning of this complex organism will certainly give me enough rector`s satisfaction.


Source: Welcome to Cracow