Science at the state level consists of two distinct and heterogeneous systems: the global science system and national science systems. National science systems are deeply embedded in global science, and states seek to use global knowledge for domestic economic needs. However, harnessing the wealth of global knowledge can only be done through scientists. Consequently, the scientific strength of states in practice depends on the scientific strength of individual scientists. Their ability to collaborate internationally and to tap into the global scientific network is crucial. By remaining outside it and working within local research programs, the academic community risks being marginalized, losing the interest of national research funding patrons, and losing the ability to influence the development of science.

This study presents an analysis of the unprecedented growth of international research collaboration in Europe in terms of distribution of co-authorship and citation of globally indexed publications over the last decade (2009–2018). The dynamics of change that emerge from this analysis are as follows: the increasing level of international cooperation is drawing key European systems away from institutional cooperation, with stable and strong national cooperation. National scientific output, i.e. the total number of publications, remains stable, and the entire increase in the number of publications over the period should be attributed to international co-authorship publications, which are the only driving force behind the increase in the number of publications in Europe. Due to the emergence of global networked science, in which the role of national policies in cooperation is decreasing and the role of scientists is growing, the key to the development of cooperation in Europe (and in Poland) is the readiness of individual scientists to undertake international cooperation. Researchers cooperate internationally when it is profitable for them in terms of academic prestige, scientific recognition and access to research funding, which is suggested by the three models proposed here (the model of credibility cycle in science, the model of prestige maximization and the model of global science). The total number of analyzed articles indexed in the Scopus database was 5.5 million, including 2.2 million articles written in international cooperation.

The present paper discusses the new Polish law on higher education in the context of the contrasted global and academic paradigms of university funding, governance, and organization. Its point of departure is the advent of international comparative data in higher education, the measurability of individuals, academic units and institutions in terms of research output, and the emergence of a new social contract between the state and universities. The key concepts used to evaluate the new law are competition in science, academic income structure and academic knowledge production structure, internationalists and locals in science, and vertical differentiation in national higher education systems. The new law is assessed in the context of the original reform proposal suggested by the national team of experts led by the present author and its long-term strategic choices are discussed in more detail, including a changing system of institutional evaluation, a revised system of academic degrees, and new excellence-focused national funding schemes.

The paper analyzes the changing public-private dynamics in higher education in Poland in 1990-2016 and beyond, focusing on the processes of internal and external de-privatization of the system. De-privatization of higher education – viewed also as its republicization – is caused by declining demographics and may lead to the demise of the largely demand-absorbing private higher education. Poland is shown as moving against the two powerful global trends related to privatization: private sector growth and increasing reliance on cost-sharing. Data related to funding and provision in 1990-2005 (expansion) and 2006 and beyond (contraction) are analyzed in detail, and policy implications of ongoing and expected changes are discussed.

This paper examines highly paid academics – or “top earners” – employed across universities in ten European countries based on a large-scale international survey data of the academic profession. It examines the relationships between salaries and academic behaviors and productivity, as well as the predictors of being an academic top earner. While in the Anglo-Saxon countries the university research mission traditionally pays off at an individual level, in Continental Europe it pays off only in combination with administrative and related duties. Seeking future financial rewards through research does not seem to be a viable strategy in Europe – but seeking satisfaction in research through solving research puzzles is also getting difficult, with the growing emphasis on “relevance” and “applicability” of research. Thus both the traditional “investment motivation” and “consumption motivation” for research are ever-harder to be followed, with policy implications. The primary data come from 8,466 usable cases. This paper examines change processes in Western Europe and in Poland (in a European context) and its main reference point is American higher education scholarship; it is, on the theoretical plane, the founder of the conceptual frameworks to study academic salaries, and, in practical terms, the US science systems heavily draws on European scientific talents.

Lifetime biographical and publication histories of 2,326 full professors were examined. A combination of administrative, biographical, and bibliometric data was used. Retrospectively constructed productivity, promotion age and speed classes were examined. About 50% of current top productive professors have been top productive throughout their academic careers, over 30–40 years. Topto- bottom and bottom-to-top transitions in productivity classes over academic careers are very rare. We used prestige-normalized productivity in which more weight is given to articles in high-impact than in low-impact journals, recognizing the highly stratified nature of academic science. The combination of biographical and demographic data with raw Scopus publication data from the past 50 years (N = 935,167 articles) made it possible to assign all full professors retrospectively to different productivity, promotion age, and promotion speed classes. In logistic regression models, there were two powerful predictors of belonging to the Top productivity class for full professors: being highly productive as associate professor and as assistant professor (increasing the odds by 180% and 360%). Neither gender nor age (biological or academic) emerged as statistically significant. Our findings have important implications for hiring policies as scientists stay in Polish academia usually for several decades.

We examined the male-female collaboration practices of all internationally visible Polish university professors (N = 25,463) based on their Scopus-indexed publications from 2009–2018 (158,743 journal articles). We merged a national registry of 99,935 scientists with the Scopus publication database, using probabilistic and deterministic record linkage. Our database (“The Polish Science Observatory”) included all professors with at least a doctoral degree employed in 85 researchinvolved universities. We determined an “individual publication portfolio” for every professor. The gender homophily principle (publishing predominantly with scientists of the same sex) was found to apply to male scientists — but not to females. The majority of male scientists collaborate solely with males; most female scientists, in contrast, do not collaborate with females at all. Gender homophily in research-intensive institutions proved stronger for males than for females. Finally, we used a multi-dimensional fractional logit regression model to estimate the impact of gender and other individual-level and institutional-level independent variables on gender homophily in research collaboration.

In this text, we analyze the limitations of using academic age as a proxy for biological age in the whole national science system, for which we consider both biological age and academic age of all researchers from all Polish universities, holding at least a PhD degree and participating in global academic science through international publications (N = 20 569). An approximation of a researcher's functioning in global science is having at least one publication indexed in the Scopus database in the analyzed decade 2009–2018. Thus, using the example of comprehensive data from the entire national system of science, we estimate the extent of limitations of using academic age as a proxy for biological age depending on selected independent variables and analyze both the practical and methodological implications of using academic age in academic career research, which is one of the most important components of quantitative studies of science.

In this paper we analyze the phenomenon of quitting academic science and show how quitting differs between men and women, academic disciplines and over time. The approach presented is comprehensive: global, based on cohorts of scientists, and longitudinal – we observe the publication activity of individual scientists over time. Using metadata from Scopus, a global bibliometric database of publications and citations, we analyze the publication careers of scientists from 38 OECD countries who began publishing in 2000 ( N = 142 776) and 2010 ( N = 232 843). The paper tests the usefulness of large bibliometric datasets for a global analysis of academic careers.

The purpose of this article is to determine what can we learn about the changing demographics of scientific personnel around the world and over time using available global bibliometric data sources. We wanted to see how useful global data could be for analyzing the scientific workforce. We tested how the demographic transformation of the global scientific profession can be measured using new data sources, thus transcending the traditional approach in which national statistics from national statistical offices are aggregated to a higher level, as in the case of the scientific workforce databases produced by the OECD, UNESCO and the European Union (Eurostat).