You can read more about the context and other information collected by the secret police, as well as get a flavour for their operation here: www.propublica.org/article/how-...

Read the full paper: "Multi-purpose populist policymaking in practice: the Polish academic evaluation reform"(Piotrowska, Szkurłat, Szydłowska, 2025).
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

This shows how populist reforms can be formally legal, yet designed to entrench ideology and institutionalise patronage. Higher education policy, often overlooked, is a crucial site of populist governance: shaping elites, promoting ideology, and redistributing resources.

But most of all, 3️⃣Catholic-affiliated journals gained disproportionately, embedding a conservative-nationalist agenda and rewarding pro-government institutions.

1️⃣Humanities and 2️⃣Polish-published journals were given a boost – framed as responsiveness to scholars worried about internationalisation.

The reform of Poland’s academic evaluation system looked like a technical adjustment. In practice, it reshaped how prestige and funding were distributed across universities and disciplines.

Together with Izabela Szkurłat and Magdalena Szydłowska, we argue that populist policymaking is multi-purpose governance. A single reform can:
➡️appear responsive to “the people”
➡️embed ideological content
➡️channel resources to loyal actors

3️⃣AI detection - LLM group displayed significantly lower ability to quote one own's essay - AI use detection could leverage this by randomly sampling students for oral exams discussing the essay. Alternatively, only suspect cases could be subject to such an exam.

In my module, I do that by asking the students to complete independent research first and only then engage with the genAI task.

2️⃣ When integrating LLMs into teaching activities, start with cognitive effort, followed by the use of genAI - "Brain-to-LLM participants could leverage tools more strategically, resulting in stronger performance and more cohesive neural signatures".

1️⃣ Blank page syndrome - LLMs are often seen as an antidote to it. But the paper finds that "the LLM group produced statistically homogeneous essays within each topic". Hence, if you want your piece to stand out, using LLMs to fight the syndrome might not be the best idea.

I’m not 100% sure that this won’t actually improve his chances among voters of other far right candidates.

Day 2 is over, but there are three more to go: www.kcl.ac.uk/ai/assets/pd...

3️⃣ However, if you lack the motivation to learn, no amount of technology will help - and replacing cognitive effort will lead to skill atrophy.

1️⃣ Learning requires thinking deeply (exerting effort), over extended periods, and at regular intervals.
2️⃣ GenAI can support this by boosting motivation to exert effort (e.g., through gamification) or by adjusting difficulty to an appropriate level (e.g., customised explanations).