Witold Gnauck, Executive Director of the newly established German-Polish Research Foundation reports on the foundation’s first phase of operation and provides insights into the challenges the foundation faces in its governance and operation.
The German-Polish Research Foundation originates from an initiative by Gesine Schwan, then president of the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt on Oder, located right at the German-Polish border. The university, usually known by its Latin name “Viadrina”, was founded in 1991 as a unique experiment, with 30% of foreign students, most of them from Poland. Gesine Schwan’s initial idea was to ensure the sustainability of the university’s international activities by means of a foundation.
Things turned out slightly differently: while the Viadrina took the form of a foundation university, the German-Polish Research Foundation was established in late 2006 by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Ministry of Science of the Federal State of Brandenburg as a foundation under private law. Through an inter-governmental treaty, the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education joined the Foundation in 2008. The total endowment of the Foundation, most of which was contributed by the German Federal Ministry, currently amounts to 50 million Euros, resulting in an annual funding expenditure of around 2 million Euros.
The Foundation’s purpose is to foster research and international understanding by strengthening the cooperation between German and Polish scientists and students. It aims to support innovative projects in both countries, boost academic exchange and develop new models of collaboration, with a clear focus on social sciences and the humanities.
There has been a tremendous intensification and improvement of Polish-German relations over the last 20 years. However, there are still a number of sensitive issues between the two nations, such as historical stereotypes or imbalances regarding mutual perception and knowledge about the neighbouring country that also influence academic exchange and scientific cooperation.
To address these challenges and to introduce multiple perspectives into the Foundation’s governance and funding activities, all of its three bodies - the Board of Trustees, the Executive Board, and the Advisory Council - are composed of German as well as Polish members. In the case of the Board of Trustees, the supreme decision making body, this includes the two coordinators for German-Polish relations, reporting directly to the Polish and German governments respectively. Documents and forms are available in both languages, grantseekers (consisting mostly of universities and in some cases other academic or research institutions) are obliged to produce project proposals in both languages.
Things are more complicated when it comes to technical and financial procedures and details. With one regional and two national governments as joint funders, rules concerning the application of funds, financial reporting and so on are evidently influenced by different contexts of public law and administration. Concepts like institutional funding, systems of academic staff remuneration, travel allowances for bi-national conferences and other events differ substantially between the two countries. On top of that, the currency fluctuations between the euro and the Polish zloty will continue to make calculations more difficult and less reliable for at least another two years. Many universities and researchers in both Poland and Germany may not show too much understanding for the complex technicalities of this cross-border initiative. Long-term workable solutions to these questions will need to be found over the next couple of months.
Expectations are high for a foundation that has set out to facilitate exchange and improve scientific cooperation between two of the largest EU member states. As a result of the first and second call for proposals in late 2008 and early 2009, the Foundation has already received more than 100 grant proposals, with a total request sum of more than 20 mln Euros, exceeding the annually available funds many times over.
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