The article overlooks the processes which developed in the Polish academic and research sphere in the post-socialist period. The government’s approach toward scientific and higher education politics is being considered as well as the research organizations’ and universities’ accommodation to new economic and social realities. There are several stages of evolution of the Polish academic and science sphere at that period. The first one belongs to the period that followed the collapse of socialism and was characterized by vast autonomy of academic and research organizations without clear government’s scientific and educational policies. It resulted in huge educational expansion mainly by paid segment and decreasing of the research activity. At the same time research organizations were financed primarily by public means. The autonomy of academic organizations resulted in conserving traditional norms and spheres of activity in academic environment which didn’t create any stimulus for developing and integration in the international academic space. The Polish government became interested in developing research and higher education sphere approximately after the 2010s and undertakes a series of reforms that partly reduced the academic autonomy and created an evaluation system for the research effectiveness. Such reforms were criticized by some groups of the Polish academic community. At the moment we can say that some flagship research organizations have already emerged in Poland but a significant part of the academic community is partly marginalized.