Thanks to its scientific achievements and high educational standards, the Warsaw University of Technology has earned a place among the world's most renowned schools of higher education.

The university offers courses in all technologies and embraces the Bologna Process, an intergovernmental European reform process aimed at establishing a European Higher Education Area by 2010. The school's graduates go on to manage huge industrial corporations, lead research teams in the world's best science institutes, and develop leading-edge technologies.

The Warsaw University of Technology as a technical college has its origins in the early 19th century. It took its current name in 1915. Initially it was a Preparatory School for the Polytechnic Institute. Stanisław Staszic founded the school in 1826, and its first principal was Kajetan Garbiński, a mathematician and professor from the University of Warsaw.

After the collapse of the 1831 November Uprising, Poland's then Russian rulers closed the school. Even though it had been in existence for a short time, the school played an important role in the history of technology teaching in Poland.

An important event in this period was the opening in 1895 of Maurycy Mitte's Mechanical and Technical School, which was later run by Hipolit Wawelberg and Stanisław Rotwand. The school met high education standards and was eventually incorporated into the Warsaw University of Technology.

It was not until the late 19th century that the Russian authorities founded the Warsaw University of Technology Institute named after Czar Nicholas II. The first lectures began in the fall of 1898 in mechanical, chemical and construction engineering, but were in Russian. A year later the institute started to expand. As a result of students' demand for lectures in Polish, the Russian authorities closed the institute for four years. It reopened in the fall of 1908, but Polish students boycotted it.

With the start of World War I, the Germans allowed the school to operate as the Warsaw University of Technology with lectures held in Polish. The university then had four departments: Architecture, Machine Building and Electrical Engineering, Chemistry, and Construction and Agricultural Engineering. Since then, the university has continuously taught students despite two world wars and the German occupation of Poland.

International ties
In recent years, the Warsaw University of Technology has developed close ties with 150 colleges in 50 countries worldwide in research projects and student-exchange programs. It also takes part in the European Union's Tempu, Socrates and Leonardo educational programs. Its scientists are involved with many EU Framework Programs. The EU has recognized seven centers of excellence at the Warsaw University of Technology.

Since 2001, Civil, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, and Computer Science have been taught in English.

In 1991, the Warsaw University of Technology founded a Business School with help from prestigious international schools such as the London Business School, HEC School of Management Paris, and the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in Bergen, Norway.

The Warsaw University of Technology is a member of the European Foundation for Management Development, which brings together Europe's best business schools. It offers management and marketing programs including the International MBA, Executive MBA and certification in pharmaceuticals and international accounting.

Success stories
The school's most significant scientific achievements include the work of Prof. Leon Gradoń from the Chemical and Process Engineering Department. Gradoń's research on aerosol filtration has resulted in this technology becoming a huge Polish export hit. The university's Prof. Adam Proń, from the Chemical Department, has received the Polish equivalent of the Nobel Prize from the Foundation for Polish Science for his research on polymers.

The university's students are also making their mark internationally. Some took part in the European Space Agency's Student Space Exploration and Technology Initiative that led to the launch of the Express space probe in 2005.

A futuristic wheelchair built by Warsaw University of Technology students recently claimed first prize in an international design competition known as the Autodesk Inventor Student Design Contest.

For mind and body
Besides lectures and research, the university offers students culture, sports and tourism activities. Students run a monthly college magazine, an internet radio service, a newsletter and their own website, polibuda.info. Recently students have started their own TV station, TVPW.

There are 35 science clubs that organize events such as the annual Science Club and Student Organization Fair and the Foreign Scholarship Fair. The Academic Sports Association operating at the Warsaw University of Technology includes 37 sports clubs, among them the Student Yachting Club, which organizes cruises in the Baltic and North Seas.

Events that promote activities such as swimming, climbing and cycling are especially popular with the university's students. No less appealing are cultural and artistic events held in student clubs such as Remont, Stodoła, Amplitron, Mechani and Alfa. The Warsaw University of Technology boasts a student orchestra called The Engineers Band, in addition to a song and dance ensemble, a choir and the Masovia folk dancing troupe.

Wojciech Romanowicz


FACT FILE

Before World War II, the Warsaw University of Technology had just over 5,000 students, compared with almost 30,000 today.

A total of 29,846 students are currently enrolled in the school's 17 departments and the Interdepartmental Center.

The school's highly qualified staff includes 2,387 lecturers, 1,137 Ph.D. students working as academic teachers, and 1,961 non-teaching employees.

Twenty-seven different areas of study are available to students, along with a range of related programs and education facilities.

Between 1945 and 2004, the Warsaw University of Technology awarded 6,221 doctorates, 1,190 postdoctoral degrees, and 130,000 master's, bachelor's and other degrees.

The Warsaw University of Technology comprises 148 buildings that house 320 laboratories, IT facilities with 5,200 computers, and a main library with 979,045 books.

The school participates in 609 research projects initiated by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and 93 European research projects. The university's 103 international agreements testify to its worldwide significance as a research institution.

Together with other Polish colleges, the university is working to establish a Warsaw Technological Park under the auspices of the Warsaw Science Consortium. The Warsaw University of Technology wants to build its own Sports Center, which would also be of use during the Euro 2012 soccer championships that Poland is hosting together with Ukraine.