Monitoring and evaluation

IDUB UMK IDUB Programme Monitoring and evaluation

We have planned 15 actions for the years 2020-2025 and 5 sustainment actions for 2026. We have also identified milestones for each action, which specify what deliverables must be produced in the declared timeframe. By way of example, three milestones have been defined under the action “Establishment of the International Advisory Board and scientific councils; increasing the role of peer-review in the evaluation of scientific results”. These are: (i) Establishment of the Advisory Board and scientific councils (months 1-12); (ii) First internal evaluation of the scientific results achieved by the NCU, especially by the Centres of Excellence and Doctoral Schools (months 37-42); (iii) Implementation of recommendations (months 37-48).

Under the agreement with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the Nicolaus Copernicus University has undertaken to implement all the planned activities according to the time schedule. Since we have an implementation period of 1-72 months for each of the main 15 actions, we are very likely to deliver on all the promises despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, milestones may also have to be monitored as less time has been reserved for their implementation. Therefore, it is worthwhile to have a more detailed look at the list of actions and milestones.

Progress indicators will be an important element of the IDUB programme subject to monitoring and evaluation. The values of these indicators have been declared by the NCU in the competition application. They fall into three types: (i) mandatory indicators to be met by all universities receiving funding under the IDUB programme; (ii) optional indicators selected by the NCU from the list of indicators declared by the Ministry for selection; (iii) indicators determined by the university for objectives 4-6, which each university had the responsibility to define. What is more, we have declared in the NCU application that Emerging Fields meet the quality criteria.

The methodology for measuring the indicators has been described in detail in the NCU application. Progress indicators are measured by means of the Web of Science database, the POL-on system, and information additionally collected by the University. For the purposes of bibliometric indicators related to Priority Research Areas and Emerging Fields, we have identified so-called research areas that best describe their thematic scope.

Academic teachers and doctoral students who are members of the Centers of Excellence and Emerging Fields should take particular care to select journals in which publications related to a given subject have the greatest impact on the branch of science, i.e. they are in the so-called first quartile – Q1 or in the case of Emerging Fields in Q1 or Q2. For Centres of Excellence, publications in these journals will guarantee an increase in the mandatory indicators declared in the application. For Emerging Fields, the NCU application did not specify the current and future value of the indicators; therefore, more publications in prestigious journals will esentially increase the university’s indicators. The quality of research conducted in Emerging Fields will be subject to annual evaluation performed at the NCU by the scientific councils for fields of science.