Interview with NN
Audio recording from 29 May 2020 of a conversation between Dr Witold Kilarski and NN — Head of NCN Grants Control. On that same day, NCN Director Zbigniew Błocki allegedly blackmailed NN to pressure Kilarski into withdrawing his NAWA grant application in order to appease Prof. Marcin Drąg.
A. Blackmail by Director Błocki
NN describes how Director Błocki summoned her and demanded she tell Kilarski to withdraw his NAWA grant application ("Polish Returns") to appease Prof. Marcin Drąg.
"[He told me] that you should withdraw the Returns application, because either way — and I quote — 'He wouldn't get it anyway.'"
"I hope this will appease — precisely — that this will satisfy Mr Drąg, if Mr Kilarski withdraws his project from the Returns programme."
"The information I received today is that Mr Marcin Drąg is influential."
B. Sexual assault by Prof. M.D.
NN recounts an alleged sexual assault by Prof. M.D. — according to her account she was pressed against a fence, kissed against her will, and intimately touched despite her stated objection. NN emphasises that she resisted and repeatedly demanded that the conduct stop. The description is kept to the evidentiary facts, without unnecessary anatomical detail.
"He pressed me against the fence, started kissing me. He started putting his hand into my trousers."
"I didn't want it, I didn't want it — right? Because I kept pulling his hand out and saying the whole time: Take it out, Marcin, take it out, Marcin, stop, leave it."
C. Dismissal of the incident by the Director
When NN reported the alleged assault to NCN Director Z.B., he reportedly responded with a sexual remark instead of taking institutional action. NN treats this as a failure of her superior to react appropriately.
"What does it matter? Maybe soon I'll be the one offering you sex."
"You didn't offer me sex. I could have said: And if you had, I'd probably have thrown up."
D. Reading Private Messages
Błocki and chief accountant Wais read NN's private Messenger conversations without her consent:
"He was reading my Messenger messages... Wais too. Błocki was reading them, but he gave them to Wais. He read them too."
E. Systematic corruption at NCN
NN describes multiple alleged corruption cases at NCN:
Januszkiewicz case — Błocki was excluded due to conflict of interest but still intervened to change the audit opinion.
Gola case — the NCN Director saved 1.3 million PLN for a researcher after hearing from the Council Chair that he was "a very good scientist."
"Husbands and wives of coordinators submit grant applications to NCN — that's okay [according to them]."
F. Mudelsee Copy-Paste Reviews
NN discusses the Mudelsee case — an expert who copied the same review fragment to 10–14 different grant applications in the GRIEG programme:
"Ten, ten grants or fourteen grants... And he copied a fragment concerning probably one person. He copied it to the others."
G. Doctoral Student from the University of Silesia — Theft of Ideas from Grants
NN describes the case of a doctoral student from the University of Silesia (anonymised, hereafter: "the anonymised doctoral student"). According to NN, the student filed a written complaint with NCN alleging misconduct by her supervisor and the alleged use of ideas drawn from the grant applications he was reviewing. NN states that NCN's Research Integrity Committee closed the case in her absence — in a short time, with the participation of Janeczek, a former Chair of the NCN Council who, according to NN, was not a committee member but came to support a colleague from the same university.
"This expert [...] from the University of Silesia — a girl filed a letter saying that the professor forces her to do experiments, that he steals ideas from the reviewed grant applications. And those remarks were enough. I was on leave. Case, case closed."
"And why did he come to the committee meeting? Because he works at the University of Silesia and the expert in question is his mate."
"And like never before, Mr Jakub Michalik wrote a letter on behalf of the committee in fifteen minutes. 'Thank you sir, we apologise for everything, for the trouble and so on.' I came back after two weeks' leave and the case was already settled."
"That the doctoral student has a conflict of interest because — in her view — he is bullying her. She believes he harasses her, and he simply demands that she come to the laboratory [personal circumstances redacted following legal audit] and perform an experiment which he then does not use for anything for six months."