General information

Short history

The Institute carries out basic and applied research in physics, with emphasis on nuclear physics. This research is aimed at explaining the structure of matter from microscopic to cosmic scales, through experiments and/or application of theoretical methods. Our activity extends into interdisciplinary research in a range of related fields and also stimulates technology transfer to the industry and to spin-off companies.

We are involved in both theoretical and experimental research, concerning the following fields:

• particle physics and astrophysics
• nuclear and strong interactions physics
• condensed matter physics
• interdisciplinary and applied research, in particular: medical physics, nano-materials engineering, environmental physics, dosimetry, radiation and environmental biology, biophysics, nuclear geophysics, radiochemistry, and econophysics

The Institute territory of 8 ha is located in Bronowice - the western part of Cracow. Several buildings host laboratories, lecture hall, seminar rooms and workshop for production of scientific apparatus. The Scientific Council of the Institute is authorized to confer the Ph.D. degrees and the Habilitation degrees in physics, end to initiate and conduct professorship procedures.

The Institute has personnel of over 496 people, including 37 full professors, over 30 associate professors and over 140 post docs.

In December 2004, acting on behalf of the President of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Director General of IFJ PAN invited six distinguished European scientists to make up the Scientific Advisory Board. The Board evaluates bi-annually all the research activity at the Institute and issues a formal Report assesing the quality of the scientific work, activity and achievements of research groups and their organizational structure. In their Report, the Board proposes measures of improvement of whatever it finds imperfect as well as puts forward recommendations as to advisable research topics and other plans for the future.

The Institute is pursuing an active cooperation with Polish universities which concerns reasearch as well as education processes. Several employees of the Institute have been giving full university courses and organizing specialized seminars on various topics within their expertise as well as advanced laboratory practice.

The International Post-Graduate Course at IFJ has at present 55 students from universities of several countries.

The average yearly yield of the IFJ PAN encompasses 600 scientific papers, reports and conferences contributions. A half of the publications appear in the master international journals listed by the Philadelphia Institute for Scientific Information.

Each year the Institute hosts international and national scientific conferences. They give opportunity for revieving recent important results, as well theoretical and experimental, and offer a general forum to discuss the frontiers of physics. Some of these events also give comprehensive course to a young scientists.

The Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences performs research of high international visibility and is a research institution with a large scientific and technical potential.