University of Toruń

Despite the fact that 500 years seems a very long time, the history rewards for this patience. The founded in 1945 Nicolaus Copernicus University has become not only a successor of these centuries-old desires, but the Toruń Alma Mater also inherited rich traditions of such outstanding schools as Stefan Batory University of Vilnius, Jan Casimir University of Lviv, Jagellonian University of Krakow, University of Warsaw, and University of Poznań. Remarkable professors of these school such as the University's first rector Ludwik Kolankowski, an exceptional historian, Władysław Dziewulski, an astronomer, who "moved" the astronomical observatory of Vilnius to Torun, Tadeusz Czeżowski, a logician and philosopher, representative of the famous school of Lviv and Warsaw as well as Konrad Górski, a historian and theoretician of literature - the beloved master of several generations of Toruń students of Polish studies - made the young Alma Mater of Torun since its very beginnings have a group of leading scholars. That's why this "gifted child" had quickly metamorphosed into a multi-talented "youngster".

Let's compare some data: when in May 1946, the then rector of the Nicolaus Copernicus University, Prof. Ludwik Kolankowski solemnly inaugurated operations of the Alma Mater of Toruń, the school had four faculties: the Humanities, Mathematics-Natural Sciences, Law-Economics and Fine Arts; it engaged 60 independent scientific employees and educated 1,600 students. Today, the University of Toruń is the biggest academic school in the north of Poland featuring 2246 academic teachers, including 630 professors, 16 faculties, 70 majors, and 35,000 students who are educated in 100 specializations.
The Nicolaus Copernicus University cooperates with dozens schools, participates in execution of international projects just to mention COST, COPERNICUS, ClPACT, PECO, PHARE-TESSA, TEMPUS. Thanks to agreements signed with the European Committee within the SOCRATES/ERASMUS program, every year a group of students and scholars travels to western universities. Academic teachers participate every year in nearly 1,000 training programs, conferences, symposia and research abroad, whereas the school itself hosts over 600 scientists from all over the world. Every year the scholars of Toruń take advantage of over 190 grants of the Scientific Research Committee, participate in research projects (among others in Spitsbergen, Antarctica and Island), organize about 100 conferences and scientific conventions of national and international range.
The scientific capabilities of the Toruń University include also such institutions as the University Center of Nonlinear Research, the Interdisciplinary Group of Early Detection Methods of New Growth Tumors and the Interdisciplinary Group of Environmental Protection and Management.

Collegium Maius
The largest radio telescope in Poland, with a diameter of 32 m, is located at the astronomical observatory of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.
Renaissance silver binding from the collection of Albrecht Hohenzollern and his wife Anna Maria in the collection of the University Library in Toruń

The local Faculty of Fine Arts, the work of which is named the Toruń school of preservation is a successor of the best traditions of artistic education and the art of preservation of cultural properties, implemented in the University by Prof. Bronisław Jamontt, a painter and graphic artist, co-founder of the Plastic Artists Society of Vilnius. Professors Marian Arszyński and Jan Tajchman compiled documentation, thanks to which Toruń won the designation of World Heritage Sites from UNESCO.
As befits the home city of the greatest astronomer, the Nicolaus Copernicus University is Poland's leading scientific centre conducting astronomical observations and research. Foundation of the Astronomical Observatory in Piwnice near Toruń, later renamed the University's Astronomical Centre, is an accomplishment of Prof. Wilhelmina Iwanowska (1905-1999), a graduate of the Stefan Batory University of Vilnius, an assistant of Prof. Władysław Dziewulski, with whom she arrived at Toruń in 1945 in order to establish the Nicolaus Copernicus University. It's just in Toruń, where Prof. W. Iwanowska made her most important discoveries in the field of spectroscopy, was a longtime director of the Toruń Astronomical Observatory and an advocate of radioastronomy. Her international scientific prestige contributed to furnishing of the University Astronomical Centre into Europe's third biggest, 32-metre radiotelescope. Professor Wilhelmina Iwanowska, a noble human being, a gifted scientist was awarded with the Honorary Citizenship of Toruń.
The successors of the works of Prof. W. Iwanowska include among others Prof. Aleksander Wolszczan, a graduate of the Alma Mater of Toruń, a discoverer of the first non-solar planetary system, who since 1997 had lead the Astronomical Centre of the Nicolaus Copernicus University. For many years Prof. Wolszczan has been connected with astronomical centres in the USA; he works as professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the State University of Pennsylvania. He discovered the first planetary system beyond the Solar System by means of a 300-m radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. The astronomers' environment regarded this as the biggest discovery done by a Polish astronomer since Copernicus' times.

The University Library is a priceless treasury of the Toruń school with its collection containing over two million volumes, including nearly 440,000 old prints, historical manuscripts, cartographic works as well as such bibliophilic rarities as Ptolemy's "Geography" dating from 1508.

It's hard to overestimate the role of the Alma Mater of Toruń in the scientific and cultural landscape of the city. One has to agree that this respected school bestows a unique intellectual climate upon Toruń.

This climate is influenced also by other higher schools in Toruń.