Krzysztof Gawkowski has put university cybersecurity high on the digital affairs ministry’s priority list. That is a necessary shift, but it remains mainly a policy commitment: no dedicated budget, timetable or operating rules for the proposed incident-response team have been announced.
The deputy prime minister made the statement at a meeting with university rectors at the Warsaw School of Economics. According to Nauka w Polsce, the discussion covered digital-infrastructure modernisation, cybersecurity funding and cooperation between universities and government. Gawkowski also said universities’ cybersecurity needs exceed their financial capacity.
That admission is the most important part of the announcement. Other areas, including critical infrastructure and local government, had previously taken priority. Prof. Dariusz Szostek, who chairs KRASP’s cybersecurity team, described years of underinvestment in technology and the resulting technological debt. He said adequate protection would require substantially greater spending and several years of sustained organisational and technical work.
Participants also discussed a sectoral computer-security incident-response team for science and higher-education institutions. A specialised support point could address universities’ needs more directly than general programmes, particularly as NASK already supplies protection tools. But the report gives no launch date, remit, funding model or operating structure for the team.
The minister’s statement matters because it recognises that universities cannot close this gap from their own resources. Its test now is practical: multi-year funding, access to existing tools and a clear division of responsibility. Without those decisions, placing universities first in the queue will remain a political promise rather than an upgrade in protection.
Sources
- Nauka w Polsce · Fundacja PAP — Źródło: Nauka w Polsce (Fundacja PAP) (https://naukawpolsce.pl/) · Source date: 2026-11-10
Independent editorial content. WUA is not affiliated with any political party. 2026-11-10