„Polish science of the XXI century in photography”

The present century will belong to science. Its importance is highlighted by many scientists, science popularizers and publicists, such as an American physicist and futurist Michio Kaku in his book “Visions. How science will change the world in the twenty-first century “. This raises the following question: are we, as a state and a society, prepared for this challenge? It is obvious that Poland should build its strength, inter alia, by supporting progress of science.

For several years we have been using EU funds and a significant part of it was spent on education and science. Thanks to this aid the infrastructure was built, research activities were conducted and eventually it was possible, to a greater extent, for the Polish scientists to undertake research internationally and establish professional contacts across the world.

National Information Processing Institute (OPI BIP) and Institute of Contemporary Civilization Problems named after Marek Dietrich (IPWC) decided to organize an exhibition, which essentially presents research projects in Poland carried out within the Operational Programme “Innovative Economy”. This initiative is fulfilling the mission of the aforementioned entities which is supporting progress of science in Poland. OPI BIP is a research institute which aim is to provide access to complex and up-to-date information concerning Polish science, in particular by publishing databases on institutions, projects, publications and research activities. At the same time IPWC carries out studies on social understanding of contemporary civilization problems, forecasts influence of science and technique on future shape of the society and undertakes activities to integrate academic community.

The exhibition will feature several photos that were taken within one of the OPI BIP projects – its aim was to document the research activities carried out thanks to the Operational Programme “Innovative Economy”. Part of the photographs concerned has been used in a book “Kot Einsteina” (“The Einstein’s cat”) by Robert Siewiorek and published by OPI BIP.

The exhibition will be shown at universities that set up IPWC as their intercollegiate-body, successively at Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw School of Economics, Warsaw University of Technology as well as Warsaw University. Exhibition will terminate in January 2016. The next year will be very important for the university society of Warsaw, as the two schools, namely University of Warsaw and Warsaw University of Life Sciences, will be celebrating their 200th anniversary.

Due to the anniversary mentioned above we have chosen 16 photographs that we would like present to a broader audience. Our goal was to give a picture of the Polish science at the beginning of twenty-first century, and therefore among the photographs you will find examples from different parts of Poland, not only from the largest academic centers, but also from smaller ones, such as Skierniewice, Gliwice and Koszalin. It is the only piece of research activities implemented in Poland – photos and their descriptions show its diversity. We would like to stress that this is not scientific photography in the strict sense, but rather a documentation of what is happening now in Polish science expressed in an artistic way – authors of the pictures are talented young Polish photographers.

We hope for a warm reception of the exhibition and that it will be presented in the future at other universities in Poland.

EXHIBITION CURATORS: dr Michał Kruk (IPWC) i Anna Pira (OPI BIP)