Evaluation

In 2022 the Polish academic community awaits another evaluation of scientific activity. It will be significantly different from the parametric evaluations made in previous years.

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The upcoming evaluation is to concern scientific disciplines and not, as yet, faculties of the university. In the case of Lodz University of Technology the evaluation will cover 12 disciplines (materials engineering; mechanical engineering; automation, electronic and electrical engineering; information and communication technology; chemical sciences; nutrition and food technology; architecture and urban planning; civil engineering and transport; physical sciences; management and quality studies; chemical engineering; mathematics).

Disciplines will be evaluated by category: A+, A, B+ (this is a new category), B or C. In the previous evaluation 8 faculties of our university received category A and one - category B. Currently we aim to obtain category A for all disciplines. The absolute minimum is category B+, the last one, which allows to keep full academic rights, i.e. the possibility of awarding academic doctoral degrees and a postdoctoral degrees (habilitation) in a given discipline.

The evaluation of the disciplines will take place within three criteria:

Criterion I - scientific or artistic level of conducted scientific activity.

In this criterion scientific publications (including articles in journals, monographs, conference papers) and granted patents will be evaluated. The change compared to the previous evaluation is the necessity to present for evaluation the publications of ALL people who declared their choice of a given discipline and are employed in research or research and teaching positions. In addition, each employee will be able to submit only a limited number of publications, resulting from the so-called "number of shares", which is 4 for the evaluated period (2017-2021) and corresponds to 4 single-author publications. Therefore, the achievements of scientifically active, intensive publishing employees will not be able to compensate for the achievements of less effective employees.

Criterion II - financial effects of scientific research and development works.

The financial effects will be assessed on the basis of the amount of funds obtained by scientists for research projects obtained in international and national calls for proposals and funds obtained from the commercialisation of research results or development works. The amounts received for the performance of scientific works commissioned by entities from outside the higher education and science sector will also count.

Criterion III - impact of scientific activity on the functioning of society and economy.

In this criterion, more qualitative than quantitative, the descriptions prepared by the representatives of the disciplines will be analyzed, which are to indicate the relationship between the conducted scientific research and, for example, the quality of life of various groups of people, the state of the economy, cultural development, functioning of services and health care, the state of the environment. In the third criterion, the so-called "individual case studies" should be described, which is supposed to enable an objective assessment of the presented description of the impact of scientific activity. Preparing appropriate descriptions can probably be very challenging and difficult, because it requires a change of thinking about the effects of our work: we are usually focused on solving specific research problems and publishing the results of research, and in this case it must be shown that solving these problems translates into real benefits for society or economy.

There is about a year left until the end of the parametric evaluation period. This is not much, but still enough to increase your publication output or prepare an application for research funding. We encourage all of you to make this effort. A good result of parametric evaluation will be a milestone on the way to achieving the status of a research university, which is a strategic goal of Lodz University of Technology.