IS A PRO-ACTIVE INSTITUTIONAL POLICY FOR ACADEMIC RESEARCH ENHANCEMENT POSSIBLE? SOME METHODICAL EXPERIMENTS.

The article proves that there is an opportunity to practically apply policy for research advancement in the Bulgarian universities using specific academic instruments. The differentiated payment based on the results of periodic attestation of academic staff figures among them. Using sophisticated statistical apparatus in the analysis of the attestation information from the Faculty of Philosophy at St. Kl. Ohridski University of Sofia we have proven that there are a few indicators of research performance which substantially differentiate the teaching staff and thus demonstrate a specific structure of the research productivity. We found that 1) there is a small number of super-active professor whose research performance creates the illusion of a huge number of research results which actually hides the fact that nearly one third of all assistant professors and professors alike have no significant research results of their activities or no activities at all; 2) the gravest problem of academic science is the predominant passivity among the young teaching staff. It is a problem of the institutional opportunities for scientific accomplishments, mainly -- the hindered access to academic research abroad. Hence, the formidable obstacle to their career advancement is not the protracted habilitation procedures but the hampered access to research performances that would make them academically significant. The paper offers a practical device for a differentiated payment as an instrument for launching active rectors' policy for research promotion. The main advantage of the proposed model is its flexibility. It can stimulate a varying number of individuals, and it can vary in its implementation year by year. It can be used to encourage different groups of academic staff -- the laggers or the elite, the young, or the ones doing a particular prioritized type of research, etc., yet remaining the very same in its principles of operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]