The Polish Scientific Bibliography (PBN) – its roots, usage, and mapping with Dublin Core and CERIF. A case study of the Jagiellonian University

Abstract

In 1990-2005 the number of Polish Higher Education students increased massively from 403 thousand to 1 million 954 thousand. In parallel with this quantitative increase in teaching, the academic institutions undergo significant qualitative improvement in scientific activities. The Polish government supported this transformation by the introduction in 1991 of KBN – State Committee for Scientific Research to administer a performance-based research funding system. After a decade of expert-based evaluation run by KBN, a new body KEJN - Committee for Evaluation of Scientific Entities replaced KBN. It oversaw two assessments for 2009-2012 and 2013-2016, awarding categories for organisational units of scientific institutions, which impact their standing and funding. A new regulation from 2018, the Constitution for Science, changed the scope of categorisations to scientific disciplines within institutions and established rules for the assessment for 2017-2020. This law also directly connected the rights of institutions to award scientific titles with obtained categories. Last but not least, the Constitution for Science replaced KEJN with another body KEN - Commission of Evaluation of Science. COVID-response regulations extended the third evaluation to include 2021.