Amendments to the rules on the employment of foreign researchers

According to the amendment of the Act on Foreigners (whose provisions came into force in April this year), the National Contact Point (KPK) informs research units (universities, institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences and research institutes) employing foreigners to carry out scientific research or development works that they should be approved in advance for this purpose by the Minister of the Interior and Administration. According to the regulations, the approval of a unit is a condition for issuing a national visa and/or a temporary residence permit for the purpose of conducting scientific research to a foreigner, and therefore it may prolong the recruitment process of a foreign employee. This provision is referred to in Chapter 7 of Article 151 of the Act on Foreigners. (We recommend that you read this Chapter as it contains other requirements, such as the agreement concluded with the researcher.)
The approval of the aforementioned units takes place at their request. The application should contain, inter alia, general information about the fact that the unit will accept foreigners for the above purpose within the framework of projects and not only (no foreigners’ data need to be provided), about the existence of the unit for at least 5 years before submitting the application and conducting scientific activity during that time independently and continuously. The letter should be accompanied by documents confirming the fulfilment of these conditions. The issuance of a decision may take between 30 and 60 days, as the applications are also consulted with other authorities, such as the Border Guard or the Internal Security Agency. The paper version of the application should be sent by post to the Ministry of the Interior and Administration.
The current list of approved scientific entities is to be published in the official journal of the Minister in charge of internal affairs (however, it is not yet available online; so far few entities have applied to the Ministry of the Interior and Administration).
It is recommended that scientific units apply for approval as mentioned above to improve the processes of employing foreigners.

Information on the approval of foreigners is available on the website of the Ministry of Interior and Administration and at the telephone number of the Ministry: +48 22 60 133 34

First Polish e-learning platform

The Ministry of Science and Higher Education, together with the Young Science Foundation (Fundacja Nauki Polskej – FNP) and partners, 30th October launched the first Polish educational platform of the Polish MOOC. The platform is a reliable and free source of knowledge available online for everyone, regardless of age and place of residence. More on the NCBiR website – link .
Link to the POLISH MOOK educational platform – here.

New service for employees, PhD students and candidates for researchers at IUNG-PIB

One of the key elements of the HR Strategy for researchers is access to information. These are both information about recruitment and regulations in force at the unit.

The purpose of the service for the IUNG employees is to collect and regularly update the content that may be useful to the scientists of our unit.

I am asking everyone who is interested in co-creating the IUNG HR platform:

  • transferring information to the portal that could be interesting for you,
  • posting new ideas and possible improvements regarding the website,
  • sending interesting scientific information, legal changes and others that may be of interest to the scientific community of our Institute. I hope that the service will be helpful to you.

Monika Kowalik – HR Strategy coordinator, website administrator