Neustála snaha rušiť Vedeckú grantovú agentúru MŠVVaŠ SR – SAV

Currently, a significant proportion of scientific and scholarly outputs are produced within the framework of grants awarded by a specific scientific agency. There are a number of grant schemes in Slovakia that support science and research. The resources used are mostly state, public, European and, to a certain extent, private. The bulk of the projects undertaken at scholarly institutes are backed by the Scientific Grant Agency (VEGA), whose funds are provided by the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sports of the Slovak Republic (MŠVVaŠ SR) and the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV). Any attempt to "transform/reform" a functioning basic research support scheme naturally provokes negative reactions in the scholarly community. These also include the material entitled "Proposal of VEGA action alternatives (/KEGA)". It comes as a surprise, or even a shock, to read that some of the proposals for the elimination of VEGA come from the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Slovak Republic and from other supreme state administration bodies. What is invariably used as an argument is the need to make the system more efficient. It is usually emphasized, with regard to the science-support agencies, that their number does not agree with the needs, or that their centralization would enhance the quality of scientific outputs. Yet, it should be noted that centralization as such is the easiest way to administer a process and thus to assume complete control over it, allowing one to push forward their own interests. Regarding VEGA, there are constant controversies about whether it is a grant agency or just a mechanism for redistributing institutional funds. Scientific results suit politicians only when the latter wish to prove the country’s advancement level or when a specific problem is considered to be such that it could jeopardize the system’s stability. Unlike these, other research results are neglected, and, before long, the declared support is forgotten again because soon new political, social, economic or other interests of the state are found more important.