05.03.2026 There are places in Poland that operate at a genuinely world-class level – but they do so in conditions that make it systematically hard to build anything that lasts. In a Candela Foundation podcast, Anna Pawlus, Managing Director of ICTER, speaks candidly about the problem: Poland still lacks a clear definition of what “Centres of Excellence” really are within the national system; funding often ends before an institution can fully mature; and bureaucracy can drain motivation faster than a tight budget.
Anna Pawlus begins with a point that still feels surprisingly “uncomfortable” in Poland: you can’t sensibly evaluate Centres of Excellence if the state itself has no clear answer to what they are – and how they’re supposed to function after major international funding ends.
“Poland still doesn’t have a clear definition of what a Centre of Excellence actually is. The EU provides significant funding to build such places, but on our side there’s a lack of regulations and a lack of a plan: how this is meant to work within the system, and what happens when the project ends. And it ends quickly – after six years – so the centre can end up being treated like an ‘expired grant’ rather than an institution worth sustaining.”
This “missing definition” is not an academic debate about terminology. If there is no institutional category, there is no stable pathway – no predictable framework for funding, staffing, equipment investment, and, crucially, no strong reason for people to believe it makes sense to tie their future to such an organisation.
“Six years is close to impossible.” The time trap of excellence
Anna’s strongest argument is about time. Not because “scientists are impatient”, but because building an institution has its own physics: recruitment, equipment, infrastructure, procedures, and organisational culture. It’s not a sprint.
“Six years to build a Centre of Excellence is, in practice, almost impossible. In that time, you can at best start developing something in a meaningful way. We started from a MAB project – five research teams – but if you begin from zero and build five teams from scratch, you first need to recruit their leaders. Then those leaders must create their groups, find the right people, and build the backbone – meaning they have actually to equip laboratories. That’s when those five to six years shrink very quickly.”
And then there is the “random factor” everyone has learned to take seriously – especially when it hits at the worst possible moment in an institution-building timeline:
“We – like many other centres – started during the pandemic, when everything was only just getting underway. That created real obstacles: it was harder to bring people in quickly, and equipment deliveries were often delayed. There were countless constraints, so in practice, the already short timeframe for building the centre shrank even further.”
This is the core of the “project-based” problem: if after a few years someone says “let’s measure the effects” and then “the project is over”, what you’re really testing is not excellence – but an organisation’s ability to survive inside a narrow funding window.
Critical mass and a shared voice: Polish Teaming Club
Anna Pawlus also makes it clear that the centres don’t want to face these issues alone. A recurring theme is “critical mass” – the moment when similar institutions become numerous enough to speak with one voice, rather than knocking on doors one by one.
“We know there is strength in a group, which is why a grassroots initiative – Polish Teaming Club – was created. It’s a space where all Teaming centres meet and discuss the topics and problems they face, especially because each of us is at a different stage of development. Even if we are in different phases, we face very similar challenges. Together we show that a certain critical mass of such centres has already emerged in Poland – and that these are not isolated exceptions, but a growing, real part of the system.”
What would the “ideal world” look like for someone running a research institution?
“In an ideal world, it would work like this: a decision is made, a project starts on a specific date, and from that moment you no longer live in uncertainty – whether funding will actually be granted, when exactly it will start, and how to configure your budget in the meantime. Instead, you can immediately focus on what matters most: the substance and delivering what you promised.”
That sounds obvious until it meets daily reality: when time and energy go into fighting over “when, whether, and under what rules”, substance becomes a luxury.
Brain drain starts with friction: three months for a component
Anna Pawlus defuses the talent-drain topic in a very down-to-earth way. She doesn’t begin with grand narratives about “generations” or “burnout”. She begins with logistics.
“Brain drain is a difficult topic and a real challenge: how to attract the best people, and then how to keep them. Even if salaries in the best projects are high, competing with industry can still be very hard. And there’s another thing that can discourage people just as strongly – constraints and bureaucracy. If someone needs to order a component for an optical setup using public funds, the process can drag on for three months or even several weeks. In a private company, the same thing can be done in a few days. And people see that difference very clearly.”
She adds an important point: this is not a story about “bad administration”, but about a system of rules that generates absurdity.
“This often comes from an enormous number of regulations and internal rules – sometimes downright absurd. For me, it’s one of the key reasons why science in Poland doesn’t develop as dynamically as it could. We have great people, but we need to give them tools and conditions so they can focus on research, not on navigating obstacles.”
Then comes a metaphor that works because it is both funny and painful:
“If their main job becomes ‘turning one złoty ten times to the right and five times to the left’, and wondering whether an optical component might somehow be a convertible car part – then we’re simply losing time.”
And she closes the loop with the point where passion stops being enough:
“Young scientists see this and often face a simple dilemma: yes, there is passion and they like what they do, but when they hit a wall at some point, it becomes very hard to convince them to keep working under these conditions.”
A simple organisational hack: a coordinator who understands science and paperwork
The conversation also offers a practical solution – interesting precisely because it is simple. ICTER introduced a “coordinator” role inside research teams: not “pure administration”, but a scientist (often with a PhD) who can relieve leaders and younger researchers.
“At our centre we introduced a coordinator role within the team, and in many cases, it’s genuinely a lifesaver. These are scientists with PhDs who coordinate the team’s work, provide substantive support, and at the same time help navigate the more difficult administrative issues in projects. On the one hand, it relieves leaders; on the other, it provides real support to young researchers.”
Anna Pawlus stresses what it is not:
“This is not an administrative position. Operations and administration are separate roles – procurement, HR, and accounting. The coordinator is a scientist who supports the team in more difficult, more complex project situations.”
And the model began to spread:
“This worked so well – first with Prof. Wojtkowski and then in our centre – that the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences noticed it and started implementing it in other teams. You could say it’s a simple innovation, but previously it wasn’t really used anywhere.”
It may sound like a small change, but in practice it can decide whether a young researcher runs experiments – or spends weeks pushing paperwork.
Science communication is not PR
Anna Pawlus connects science communication with talent attraction in a very real-life way. You can have a website, LinkedIn, interviews, and still, PhD students may not know you exist until they see the labs and the people in person.
“From conversations with our PhD students, it often turns out they hadn’t heard about us before – even though from the organisation’s perspective it seems we’re everywhere: we have LinkedIn, a website, and interviews. It feels like everyone must have heard of ICTER by now, but from the point of view of young people, it doesn’t look like that.”
The turning point is direct experience:
“There were visits to our centre. These young scientists had a chance to go into the lab, see what we do, ask questions, and even touch some of the setups. And that’s what made them interested.”
But the system often declares “promotion” while simultaneously tying hands with eligibility rules and hard limits.
“In most projects, promotion budgets are heavily reduced and additionally constrained by limits. If we organise something like a science picnic and it turns out that 90% of the costs are non-eligible in the project, then the whole thing starts to lose sense. And if we really want to promote science, we need real support and fewer restrictions. We also need trust – that we’ll do it responsibly.”
Large numbers sound impressive until you step into the structure of constraints.
“Sometimes, when you hear a project has 2 million, 5 million, or 30 million PLN, it sounds like a huge budget. But very quickly you realise that because of various constraints and limits – especially around communication – even if someone has a genuinely good, creative idea, there’s simply no way to fund it.”
Centres of Excellence as “lighthouses”
Centres of Excellence are supposed to be reference points for others – showing how to run research, manage teams, and collaborate internationally. The problem, Anna Pawlus argues, is that Poland still lacks mechanisms that allow such places to keep growing when the EU “start-up boost” ends. Without continuity, it’s easy to lose what matters most: people, procedures, culture, and momentum – built over years and lost in months.
Anna Pawlus sums it up like this:
“Centres of Excellence are expected to be lighthouses – showing the way and radiating impact. But a lighthouse cannot shine only for the duration of a project: it needs stable conditions and support also when the funding ends.”
You can listen to the full conversation with Anna Pawlus in Candela Foundation’s podcast.
