The Center for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) is an autonomous research unit of the AMU University of Poznan, Poland. It was opened in 2002. Professor Marek Kwiek has been its Director from the very beginning. In the past decade, the Center has won 11 million PLN (or 2.7 million euro) from national and international funding agencies for its research projects.
Since July 2012, the Center has also housed the UNESCO Chair in Institutional Research and Higher Education Policy, with Professor Kwiek as Chairholder. The current agreement between AMU and UNESCO Headquarters runs until 2027. Since 2021, it has been located within the IAS – Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences and Humanities, directed by Marek Kwiek: http://www.ias.amu.edu.pl
Our ongoing research is in quantitative studies of science, sociology of science, and higher education research and policy. Our focus is on international research collaboration, academic productivity, social stratification in science, attrition and retention in science, women in science, and global academic elites.
Specifically, we are interested in the use of structured Big Data (of the bibliometric type), administrative data, and large-scale survey data in examining the science profession and the academic profession from a global perspective. We examine the changing governance and funding structures at institutional, national, and global levels.
We combine large-scale bibliometric and administrative study designs with large-scale survey study designs, working with Polish, European, and global (mostly OECD) data. We have recently finished the “Polish Scientists 2023” survey, with almost 14,000 returned questionnaires.
Professor Kwiek been advising extensively to national governments and international organizations on university funding & governance reforms and science policy in 15 countries (for the OECD, World Bank, USAID, Council of Europe, UNDP, OSCE, as well as for Ernst & Young and PWC). Currently, he is a member of the International Advisory Board of DZHW, German Center for Higher Education Research and Science Policy Studies (term: 2024-2026). He has also advised widely to the national Ministry of Science in the past decade, currently as a member of an Advisory Group on the international promotion of Polish science (2024-2027).
The Center has been lavishly funded by successive EU research programs (including the 6th Framework Programme, 7th Framework Programme, Lifelong Learning Programme, and Erasmus Thematic Network), EEA Grants/Norway Grants, European Science Foundation (ESF), Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, Polish-German Science Foundation, OECD, UNESCO, and numerous Polish research programs administered by the National Research Council (NCN), the Center for Research and Development (NCBR), the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
The Center’s Project Manager is Dr. Marcin Byczynski and Collaborating Scholars in current externally-funded research projects include Professor Dominik Antonowicz, Dr. Wojciech Roszka, Dr. Lukasz Szymula, Alicja Laskowska, MA, and Julia Kozakiewicz, BA.
In 2025, the Center is organizing the 37th CHER (Consortium of Higher Education Reserachers) Annual Conference (September 3-5, 2025), following Vienna (2023) and Luxembourg (2024).