UNIVERSITY OF WROCŁAW Research University
We cooperate with the surrounding social organisations, NGOs and local governments to support the building of a rational, open and democratic society.
Our teaching is closely linked to these activities. Students work closely with lecturers in the framework of their current research. As a result, under the guidance of their teachers, they acquire knowledge resulting from their exposure to the latest research techniques. Moreover, at the same time, we emphasise enabling them to apply their skills and knowledge in the professions they aspire to work in. In university teaching, the latest research is the starting point for educating young people who are open to the future, who know the world and who are prepared to work in it for the benefit of us all.
The University of Wrocław aspires to be a research university. However, only in the sense described above – a community focused on conducting top-quality research for the benefit of the entire environment.
Thus, at our university, research, teaching, and cooperation with the environment are intertwined to form a multi-coloured picture, a reflection of our community’s
multicultural and multi-ethnic past and present.
Professor Przemysław Wiszewski
Rector of the University of Wrocław
HUMAN - CITY - ENVIRONMENT
HUMAN - CITY - ENVIRONMENT
scientists in the field of earth and environmental sciences
as well as sociology. The development of civilisation forces
people to face the problems of rapidly dwindling natural
resources, accelerating climate changes, and increasing
environmental pollution. As 80% of the EU population
will be living in cities by 2050, a comprehensive approach
to the relationship between the changing environment
and the quality of life and adaptation to the changing environment in the economic and social area is necessary.
PRA responds to the key challenge of the Horizon Europe
programme, including increasing the resilience of society
and infrastructure to climate change and environmental
pollution. It examines the effects of processes such as climate change, migrations, changing water resources, soil pollution, air quality and noise, taking into account cultural heritage and social aspects for the process of sustainable development. The PRA deals with current, priority scientific problems of interdisciplinary nature, the solution of which requires the cooperation of scientists from the earth and environmental sciences and social sciences.
dr hab. Sylwia DołzbłaszAssistant professor at the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Environmental Management (Department of Spatial Management).
Functioning and impact of political borders, the development of border areas and cross-border cooperation, as well as regional and local development.
dr hab. Mateusz StrzeleckiAssistant professor at the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Environmental Management (Institute of Geography and Regional Development). Head of the S. Baranowski Polar Station on Spitsbergen.
Faculty of Earth Sciences and Environmental Management
The strength of the faculty lies in the high level of its academic staff, thanks to whom the graduates are successful at home and abroad. Teaching is linked to research practice through close cooperation with global scientific and research institutions. The study programmes have been adapted to the requirements of the labour market. They are designed to provide a complete education, enabling the students to gain a profession while – at the same time – providing them with the opportunity to develop their individual interests.
The main aim of education is to equip the students with knowledge, skills and social competences.
prof. dr hab. Tomasz NiedzielskiProfessor at the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Environmental Management (Institute of Geography and Regional Development). Head of the Centre for Geographical Information Systems.
Hydroinformatics, unmanner aerial vehicles, close-range photogrammetry and remote sensing, geoinformatics, analysis of aerial imagery, statistics and time series.
dr Adam Rajsz Assistant professor at the Faculty of Biological Sciences (Department of Ecology, Biogeochemistry and Environmental Protection).
dr Adam Rajsz Assistant professor at the Faculty of Biological Sciences (Department of Ecology, Biogeochemistry and Environmental Protection).
A water bath is a device present in almost every laboratory, necessary for many chemical and biological analyses. Adam Rajsz has just developed a portable version.
prof. dr hab. Aleksandra Samecka-CymermanProfessor at the Faculty of Biological Sciences. Head of the Department of Ecology, Biogeochemistry and Environmental Protection.
The methods used in the projects include biotests, bioindication and ecotoxicological models applied to the most effective bioindicators of environmental pollution. The results of the chemical and ecological plant investigations are evaluated with sophisticated statistical programmes (neural networks, data mining, multivariate exploratory techniques), published in international indexed journals and applied environmental protection practices.
Changes to the environment resulting from chemical pollution can be evaluated thanks to the data (background values for metals in bryophytes) collected from the areas which are relatively free from pollution, such as Svalbard,
Switzerland, Spain and the Netherlands. During both field studies and laboratory experiments, scientists examine common, invasive, rare and endangered species, contributing to the extension of knowledge of their biogeochemistry as well as habitat requirements and tolerance. The results of their studies are then computed using advanced statistical analyses (such as neural networks, data mining, multivariate exploratory techniques and redundancy analysis) and ecological modelling. Additionally, they are interested in testing and developing novel indices. Some of the results can be practically applied and may be utilised in the biomonitoring of trace metal pollution as well as in the application of macrophytes in phytoremediation. They also form the basis for the effective actions in environmental protection.
Faculty of Social Sciences
of offering bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral study programmes in Polish and English. Among the offered programmes are the Erasmus Mundus programmes:
Global Studies – the European Perspective and MITRA as well as a number of double-degree programmes together with partner universities abroad.
Research at the Faculty of Social Sciences is conducted by researchers in four institutes – the Institute of International Studies, the Institute of Political Sciences, the Institute of Sociology and the Institute of Philosophy and two chairs – the Chair of European Studies and the Chair of Logic and Science Methodology. They cover a broad range of areas in the field of social sciences, i.e., research in political science, social policy, international relations, international security, global studies, European studies and international communication. In addition, in the field of empirical and theoretical sociology, research is conducted concerning various problems of sociology. In the discipline of philosophy, the focus is on Christian, modern, classical, German and contemporary philosophy.
prof. dr hab. Katarzyna KajdanekProfessor at the Faculty of Social Sciences (Department of Urban and Rural Sociology)
She focuses on the concurring nature of suburbanisation and re-urbanisation and points to the role of the quality of urban life and suburban life as essential triggers for the decision to move in or out of the city and as the basis to formulate specific expectations regarding urban and suburban life. Using qualitative methods for her research, she offers a comparative perspective of individual life stories and macrostructural processes in cities in various socio-cultural and economic contexts. Moreover, she can point out the specificity of suburbanisation
(and now re-urbanisation) in Poland.
dr hab. Marek KasprzakAssistant professor at the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Environmental Management (Institute of Geography and Regional Development)
The tradition of studying polar and mountain areas is deeply ingrained in the University of Wrocław. Research projects used to be led by geography professors - Aleksander Kosiba (1901-1981) and Alfred Jahn (1915-1999), who came from Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv and who participated in the expedition to Greenland in 1937 and made a significant contribution to the creation of the Polish Arctic research programme.
One of the topics most intensively developed here was periglacial geomorphology concerning land forms and geological processes in the cold zone at the foreland of glaciers and ice sheets. The studies focused on the functioning of permafrost, i.e. perennially frozen ground and the active layer, which thaws during Arctic summers. Permafrost, which covers one-fifth of the northern hemisphere’s land surface, is now drastically shrinking, releasing greenhouse gases trapped in the lithosphere into the atmosphere.
prof. dr hab. Mariusz Orion JędrysekProfessor at the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Environmental Management (Institute of Geological Sciences). Head of the Department of Applied Geology, Geochemistry and Environmental Management.
yield as well as the methane content in it. The members of the team are the authors of a patent concerning the method of preparing meadow biomass for biogas production. They also use the isotopic approach to study the quantitative and qualitative dynamics of greenhouse gases emitted from meadows in relation to the microbial activity of the soil.
prof. dr hab. Adam MrozowickiProfessor at the Faculty of Social Sciences (Institute of Sociology). Head of the Department of General Sociology.
The project will also involve cooperation with the team of professor Valeria Pulignano from the Centre for Sociological Research of the Catholic University of Leuven that is implementing the ERC project ResPecTMe (Researching Precariousness across the Paid/Unpaid Work Continuum).
dr hab. inż. Małgorzata WernerProfessor at the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Environmental Management (Institute of Geography and Regional Development, Department of Climatology and Atmospheric Protection).
This system is an integrated tool; optimised for analysing the processes taking place in the atmospheric boundary layer, with a particular emphasis on air pollution concentrations. State of the- art atmospheric chemical transport models are used to provide air pollution forecasts and are made available for a large community on the website: prognozy.uni.wroc.pl.
Modelling at a very high spatial resolution of tens of meters, modelling allergenic pollen and data assimilation techniques from surface and satellite observations are the most urgent research tasks that are currently being undertaken by Maciej Kryza and Małgorzata Werner.
dr Piotr WojtulekAssistant professor at the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Environmental Management (Institute of Geological Sciences).
Economic geology.
prof. dr hab. Jakub KierczakProfessor at the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Environmental Management (Institute of Geological Sciences, Department of Experimental Petrology)
Earth and environmental sciences, environmental mineralogy and geochemistry, soil pollution, petrographic studies of rocks and synthetic materials, archaeometry.
FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
Faculty of Chemistry
Therefore, specialisation classes have been developed, considering the research topics carried out at the faculty, which guarantees a high scientific level of classes and a strong connection with scientific research.
The study programme includes English-language classes and modules of classes in English. In addition, the students have the opportunity to attend lectures delivered by guest lecturers from abroad. All these activities help
prepare the students to take part in studies in foreign centres within the framework of international exchange programmes and open up the possibility for the graduates to take up professional work abroad. The education programme also includes the possibility for the students to participate in specialised courses organised by external companies. Thus, it is possible to achieve additional competences important for future professional work.
FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
• Structure and reactivity of coordination, organic and organometallic compounds with applications in bioorganic and bioinorganic chemistry. Design of new supramolecular materials and materials with spin-crossover characteristics.
• Chemistry and stereochemistry of organic compounds, including the synthesis, reactivity and molecular structure of porphyrins and porphyrinoids, aromatic and heterocyclic compounds, peptides and proteins, peptidomimetics, bioconjugates, polyynes and halopolyynes, bis- and polyazoles.
• Design and testing of homogeneous, heterogenized and nanoparticle catalysts, reactions involving ionic
liquids and molten salts.
• Design, theoretical calculations and synthesis of biologically active compounds, including drugs, peptides, aminosugars and their derivatives. Research on the role of metal ions in biological systems and interactions of metal ions with humic substances.
• Preparation and characterisation of the properties of new phosphor materials, ferroelectrics, magnetic materials, molecular crystals, molecular-ionic and liquid crystals.
prof. dr hab. Eugeniusz Zych Professor at the Faculty of Chemistry (Luminescent Materials Research Group, Department of Chemistry Fundamentals). Head of the Luminescent Materials Research Group and the Department of Chemistry Fundamentals.
prof. dr hab. Eugeniusz Zych Professor at the Faculty of Chemistry (Luminescent Materials Research Group, Department of Chemistry Fundamentals). Head of the Luminescent Materials Research Group and the Department of Chemistry Fundamentals.
Using advanced sometimes sophisticated instruments, scientists try to assess the potential of materials produced in their laboratories.
Zych, work with light-emitting materials and chemical compounds. Such materials, often termed phosphors, convert one type of electromagnetic radiation into another type of radiation, often just visible photons as well as infrared or UV radiation. Using advanced sometimes sophisticated instruments, scientists try to assess the potential of materials produced in their laboratories.
For such purposes, the fabricated phosphors are sometimes frozen to the temperature of liquid helium, 4.2 K (about -269.2 °C) or heated up to 1000 °C. This allows determining and understanding their properties and, more importantly, defining ways of designing materials of required properties for novel lighting, safe medical diagnosis, precise temperature measuring, efficient catalysis of industrial processes and many others in which controlled light generation is needed.
The researchers of the Luminescent Material Research Group are thus developing solutions that both show where the cancer cell is and destroy this cell by using radiation from the so-called ultraviolet C range, i.e., the most energetic part of the ultraviolet. Research conducted by chemists from the University of Wrocław, led by Eugeniusz Zych, is therefore heading towards developing a non-invasive method of destroying cancer cells that will possibly substantially impact on the medicine application.
prof. dr hab. Lechosław Latos-Grażyński Professor at the Faculty of Chemistry (Department of Porphyrin and Metalloporphyrin Chemistry).
prof. dr hab. Lechosław Latos-Grażyński Professor at the Faculty of Chemistry (Department of Porphyrin and Metalloporphyrin Chemistry).
Today, Latos-Grażyński’s team examine systems in which pairs of porphyrins join together to transfer the electrons or photons of light!
in respiration or in limiting the toxicity of substances harmful to our bodies. Lechosław Latos-Grażyński studies their biochemistry; he studies how they bind oxygen, how they participate in the processes related to the synthesis of new compounds and what degradation processes they undergo. He is one of the world’s leading experts in organic chemistry. He is the author of almost 300 publications on porphyrins, which have appeared in world-renowned chemical journals and have been cited over 12,000 times (Google Scholar). In addition, he is the winner of the Prize of the Foundation for Polish Science (the so-called “Polish Nobel Prize”) (1998) as well as the Prize of the Minister of Education and Science for the overall research achievements (2021).
An important role in Latos-Grażynski’s scientific activities has been cooperation with the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of California (Davis) for over twenty years. He is one of the most cited chemists working in Poland. His research has entered the canon of world scientific literature and he has been honoured by the international community with numerous awards: the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award (2005) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Invitation Fellowship for Research in Japan (2010), among others. In 2014, the Polish Chemical Society awarded him Jędrzej Śniadecki Medal, which is given for outstanding scientific achievements of global significance in chemistry.
dr hab. Bartosz SzyszkoAssistant professor at the Faculty of Chemistry (Department of Organic Chemistry). Head of the Laboratory of Advanced Synthesis Methods.
Bartosz’s research interests focus on broadly understood macrocyclic chem-istry and organic supramolecular chemistry, which includes designing new acene-porphyrin hybrids and expanded carbaporphyrinoids. Thanks to the funding granted by the National Science Centre (SONATA BIS grant), Bartosz is setting up a new research group at the Faculty of Chemistry and launching a new research programme with the focal point being the application of sub-component self-assembly method to the construction of molecular links and knots – fascinating compounds which can be treated as the manifestations of macroscopic knotted objects (e.g. sailing knots) at a molecular level.
dr inż. Sławomir PotockiAssistant professor at the Faculty of Chemistry (Biological Inorganic Chemistry Research Group, Department of Biological and Medical Chemistry).
We will begin our project by studying zinc complexes with binding domains to me-ticulously describe their thermodynamic properties. The next step will be to focus on the expression of SmtB/BigR4 proteins using E. coli strains; these proteins will be used in both thermodynamic and NMR studies. With the mag-netic resonance spectroscopy results, we hope to obtain the first structure of the SmtB protein (or BigR4, whichever proves more stable after the opti-misation process) that has never before been published. The final stage will involve the microbiological studies using genetically modified strains of M. smegmatis. To ensure the full feasibility of the project thus composed, we will execute it in close collaboration with the Faculty of Biotechnology of the University of Wrocław and the University of Warwick. Using different yet entirely complementary scientific disciplines in the project will allow us to fully describe the SmtB/BigR4 system in the dangerous human pathogen – in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
dr Nurbey Gulia Assistant professor at the Faculty of Chemistry (Organometallic Chemistry and Functional Materials Research Group, Department of Inorganic Chemistry).
dr Nurbey Gulia Assistant professor at the Faculty of Chemistry (Organometallic Chemistry and Functional Materials Research Group, Department of Inorganic Chemistry).
The synthesis of new chemical compounds is always a big challenge. At first glance, simple molecular structures often require multi-step synthesis.
The main objective of our research is to develop a general method for C-H functionalisation of primary aliphatic amines in beta position. The method is not intended to replace the traditional methods of obtaining known pharmaceuticals that have been used for years. Instead, the methodology under development opens a unique synthetic route leading to a wealth of new compounds with a high diversity of structural motifs, which may be important in the context of drug discovery. An example of the use of such methodology is the method we have developed for the synthesis of phenethylamine derivatives from primary amines and the functionalisation of N-arylpyrazoles.
prof. dr hab. Tobias FischerProfessor at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy (Institute of Theoretical Physics, Department of Particle Theory).
Fischer attracted attention with his research: “Massive star explosion as signals of extreme states of matter”.
The development of a novel multi-purpose equation for state of hot and dense matter for astrophysical application, featuring a hadron-quark matter phase transition, to the discovery of a novel explosion mechanism for massive stars; the neutrino signal from such supernova explosions as smoking gun-signature for the presence of quark matter at high densities, complementary to the gravitational wave signature from binary neutron star mergers.
prof. dr hab. David BlaschkeProfessor at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy (Institute of Theoretical Physics, Department of Particle Theory).
Currently his main research areas are quantum field theory for matter under extreme conditions of high temperatures, densities and strong fields; forma-tion and dissociation of bound states and quantum condensates under extreme conditions; investigation of the phase diagram of dense had-ronic matter and QCD phase transitions in heavy-ion collisions and in As-trophysics and last but not least: pair production (Schwinger mechanism) in strong fields and applications to high-intensity lasers.
Faculty of Physics and Astronomy
The research conducted at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy is organised around three subfields: astronomy, experimental physics and theoretical physics. The scientific study topics at the Institute of Astronomy cover heliophysics (which concerns the Sun) and astrophysics (which concerns other stars).
The research projects include: sounding interiors of stars by means of asteroseismic methods, big data analyses with the use of neuron networks and monitoring the light pollution and its influence on ecosystems in the framework
of the ALPS project (All-sky Light Pollution Survey). Furthermore, the University of Wrocław has recently collaborated with the European Space Agency and this offers new opportunities for technological development in
this field.
physics. The recent research projects focus on understanding the behaviour of high-temperature superconductors and on the elucidation of the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity. This includes studies on the properties of high-entropy alloys, which are new materials of unique microstructure.
Other studies concern new approaches to mitigating iron
corrosion, which may pave the way to a more efficient exploration of new environments or even space. Many recent projects are carried out in close cooperation with leading international laboratories, such as CERN.
The research carried out at the Institute of Theoretical Physics covers subjects ranging from atomic and nuclear physics, through physics of condensed matter, cosmology, gravitation and black holes, to the phenomenology of elementary particles and fields. Computer simulations are essential in research of this kind as they help model and predict the development of physical processes.
HUMANS BETWEEN NATURE AND CULTURE
HUMANS BETWEEN NATURE AND CULTURE
The Priority Research Area (further PRA) Humans Between Nature and Culture contributes to this by showing interrelations between nature and culture in such fundamental dimensions of human life as sensory and chemosensory perception, sexuality, morality, creativity, communication, education, literature and art. Taking into account theories of cultural, biological and cultural-genetic evolution, the PRA shows those interrelations on various levels and from various perspectives: from cells to individuals and entire societies and from biology to psychology and literary studies.
prof. dr hab. Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa Professor at the Faculty of Biological Sciences. Head of the Institute of Genetics and Microbiology (Department of Pathogen Biology and Immunology).
prof. dr hab. Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa Professor at the Faculty of Biological Sciences. Head of the Institute of Genetics and Microbiology (Department of Pathogen Biology and Immunology).
Bacteriophages are extremely precise weapons against bacteria as they attack only specific species, thus protecting the human microbiota when applied as a therapeutic agent.
The DPBI is currently working on the antibacterial activity of phage-derived enzymes such as endolysins and depolymerases, which can kill bacteria in seconds (or effectively “disarm” pathogens), helping our immune system fight infection. Furthermore, phages and their enzymes can be successfully used along with traditional antibiotics, which is confirmed by experimental therapies that have already been implemented.
Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences
The faculty’s mission is to support the rational search for the truth about the human past and the psychological and cultural conditions of its activity, development and education as well as to participate in shaping culture to support sustainable social development. The basic values implemented in the course of research and education are freedom of research, teaching and expression of opinions, not restricted by political or religious considerations.
In order to pursue these values, the faculty supports research of the highest quality, individual and collaborative, interdisciplinary and international, provides research and teaching staff of the highest quality, ensuring appropriate conditions for their development, conducts education through close contact between students and top-class researchers, emphasising the importance of the unity of science and education, actively engages in the social and cultural life of the regional, national and world community.
dr hab. Maciej KarwowskiProfessor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Psychology). Head of the Department of Creativity Psychology.
Karwowski is not only the author of frequently used tools to measure beliefs about people’s creativity and meta-analyses showing the relationship between creativity, self-image and personality but – most importantly – he is also the creator of a theoretical model capturing creativity as a causal activity, the main author of a concluding chapter on this topic published in the recent Cambridge Handbook of Creativity and, finally, the editor of a monograph summarising the current state of knowledge of the regulatory role of beliefs. Paying attention to the role of (motivational) beliefs and proposing a coherent and initially empirically validated theoretical model is an important contribution to the scientific understanding of the mechanisms behind initiating, performing and temporarily abandoning creative activity.
dr Dominika GrzesikAssistant professor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences.
Greek epigraphic culture and statuary habit.
prof. dr hab. Bogusław PawłowskiProfessor at the Faculty of Biological Sciences. Head of the Department of Human Biology.
Evolutionary approach to human body morphology, behaviour and preferences. Studies on physiological aspects of human biological condition/quality in the context of sexual selection i.e. potential signals of physical traits perceived as attractive.
dr hab. Piotr SorokowskiProfessor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Psychology). Head of the Department of Experimental Social Psychology.
(2008, 2014, 2015, 2017), the Amazon (2012), West Papua (2009, 2016, 2019), and the Pacific Region (2013, 2018). His field studies in nonindustrial societies (Hadza and Datoga of Tanzania, Tsimane’ of Bolivia, Yali of Papua) focused on the relationships between the cultural and individual predictors of various psychological mechanisms.
The results of his research have shed
new light on the interplay between evolution and culture on social and reproductive success (including publication in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Science of the Total Environment, Evolution and Human Behavior). Together with Agnieszka Sorokowska, he is a co-founder and leader of the Cross-Cultural Research group — one of the largest cross-cultural research groups in the world (www.martakowal.com/new; collaborators from 70 countries).
dr hab. Agnieszka Sorokowska Assistant professor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Psychology). Head of the Smell and Taste Research Lab.
dr hab. Agnieszka Sorokowska Assistant professor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Psychology). Head of the Smell and Taste Research Lab.
She designed and conducted several studies exploring olfactory sensitivity of the blind people as compared to the sighted individuals, and comparing these two groups in the context of processing of non–visual information potentially important for social functioning. The research enabled collecting important data that can be used in broad analyses of the importance and usage of functioning modalities following visual loss. The results can support the understanding of sensory compensation mechanisms and can help determine which cognitive mechanisms enhance the sensory processing in functioning modalities. In her current research, conducted within two grants funded by Polish National Science Centre, Agnieszka Sorokowska focuses on sensory components of food neophobia in children and on developmental changes in
psychological traits during transition to parenthood.
dr hab. Filip DuszyńskiAssistant professor at the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Environmental Management (Institute of Geography and Regional Development).
Geomorphic evolution of sandstone tablelands.
dr Izabela Lebuda Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Psychology, Department of Creativity Psychology).
dr Izabela Lebuda Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Psychology, Department of Creativity Psychology).
Izabela Lebuda has a significant research funding record, including many successfully finished projects with tracks of publications. Recently she received the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship from the European Commission in Program Horizon 2020. The project will examine creative metacognition accuracy and regulation facets from a behavioral and neuroscientific perspective. Using advanced techniques to study creative metacognition could shed new light on the chosen problem and address the extension of research topics in creative neuroscience.
Izabela Lebuda is a part of many international networks devoted to creativity research: Creative Life Research Center at the University of Northern Iowa, the USA, and Webster Center for Creativity & Innovation at Webster University Geneva, Switzerland. In addition, she closely collaborates with the Creative Cognition Lab at Graz University (Austria) and the Quality of Life Research Centre at Claremont Graduate University (USA).
dr Anna OleszkiewiczAssistant professor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Psychology, Department of Creativity Psychology).
The psychological effects of olfactory loss are very severe – people with olfactory deficits are more likely to suffer from depression, and complain of the reduced quality of life and interpersonal relationships. The loss of smell is also an early sign of neurodegenerative diseases such as: Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
The Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies (CSNE)
The Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies (CSNE)
CSNE’s activity is based on three pillars that intertwine and complement one another. These are research, teaching and public outreach. Research is focused on five thematic areas: the visions of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries; nationalism, religions and European integration; culture, literature and memory in Polish-German relations; German history and Polish-German controversies; and Poland and Germany in a united Europe.
As a university institution, it offers its expertise to Polish and German politicians and social activists and advises various domestic and foreign non-governmental organisations. Since its inception, CSNE has received financial and organisational support from various institutions, including the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Volkswagen Foundation, the Robert Bosch Foundation and the German National Foundation.
dr hab. Mirosław MasojćProfessor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Centre for Non-European Archaeology).
In the opencast mines of Africa today, people are searching for gold. Exposing successive layers, the miners came across massive stones with a transverse “sharpened” edge. These are typical prehistoric monuments known from the present-day areas of Ethiopia and Kenya. The site of the discovery is likely to have been a place where these tools were made hundreds of thousands of years ago. Masojć and co-workers found both finished “products” as well as splinters created during their making. These are traces of the presence of an African species of Homo erectus– the ancestor of modern humans (Homo
sapiens), who appeared in Africa about 1.8 million years ago.
dr hab. Dorota LeszczynaProfessor at the Faculty of Social Sciences (Institute of Philosophy, Department of Modern Philosophy).
Nineteenth and twentieth century Spanish philosophy and its interactions with German philosophy, which has its source in the transcendentalism and criticism of Immanuel Kant.
dr Marta Kondracka-Szala Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Pedagogy).
dr Marta Kondracka-Szala Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Pedagogy).
Parton – “9 to 5”, USA for Africa – “We are the World”.
dr hab. Piotr Plichta Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Pedagogy).
dr hab. Piotr Plichta Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Pedagogy).
“New media in education and rehabilitation offer a great opportunity for children but also older people with disabilities. When used by sensitive practitioners, they can respond to special educational needs, such as intellectual disabilities. On the one hand, it is a chance to eliminate inequalities and limit digital exclusion. On the other hand, new technologies also bring challenges and risky situations that need to be recognised and effectively counteracted”, explains Plichta.
Piotr Plichta is currently involved in several scientific national and international projects. He focuses on how to prevent digital exclusion through digital tools, not only in times of crisis. He is the co-author of the first free handbook in Poland published by EduAkcja just after the pandemic outbreak in April 2020: “Education in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. With a distance about what we are doing now as teachers (edited by J. Pyżalski)”. The publication has been downloaded over 100,000 times. Piotr Plichta is a member of a team looking at the learning and psychological needs of students (25,000 from 8 countries) in the pandemic, which is part of a larger international initiative
coordinated by the researchers at the University of Vienna.
His research interests also include other social contexts of using new technologies (cyberbullying, online image, problematic use of the Internet) as well as stress and burnout in helping professions. In addition, he cooperates with various educational institutions, e.g. The School with Class Foundation, the Center for Citizenship Education, and is a member of COST international scientific networks.
dr hab. Anna Brytek-MateraProfessor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Pedagogy). Head of the Department of Nutritional Psychology and the Laboratory for the Study of Eating Behaviour.
She is committed to research that results in a better understanding of maladaptive eating behaviour. Her current research focuses on the impact of negative affect on eating behaviour in laboratory and ecological settings, as well as on characteristics of dietary patterns and health-related behaviours in the field of orthorexia nervosa.
dr hab. Wojciech Małecki Assistant professor at the Faculty of Letters (Institute of Polish Philology).
dr hab. Wojciech Małecki Assistant professor at the Faculty of Letters (Institute of Polish Philology).
various genres and national literatures. Their results were published in internationally recognized journals. They also contributed to the emergence of a new field called empirical ecocriticism, dedicated to the empirical study of environmental narratives.
Together with some of these scholars, most importantly Matthew Schneider-Mayerson (Yale-NUS) and Alexa Weik von Mossner (University of Klagenfurt), Małecki edited a special issue of a leading environmental humanities journal ISLE on empirical ecocriticism (Spring 2020) and is currently working on research projects concerning the impact of narratives on attitudes toward extinction and climate change. Another extension of his work on animal narratives is his current
project, with Piotr Sorokowski, that concerns the evolutionary factors behind narrative impact and the human propensity for narrative in general.
dr hab. Tomasz PłonkaProfessor at the Faculty of Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Archaeology).
Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology, symbolic culture of forager societies.
dr Paweł DumaAssistant Professor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Archaeology, Department of Historical Archaeology).
Material culture studies.
WORKING WITH BIG DATA - FROM ALGORITHMS AND LOGIC TO DATA SCIENCE AND AI
WORKING WITH BIG DATA - FROM ALGORITHMS AND LOGIC TO DATA SCIENCE AND AI
between basic research and applications is shorter in Computer Science than in any other discipline — even Google’s empire started with a purely theoretical algorithmic discovery.
For the last twenty years, the University of Wrocław has gained wide international recognition in algorithmics and logical foundations of computer science. However, if it wishes to keep up with changes in the field, it must (while not losing what it has already achieved) extend competence over the most novel branches, data science and artificial intelligence.
prof. dr hab. Małgorzata BogdanProfessor at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science (Institute of Mathematics).
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
The research done at the Institute of Computer Science spans from classical fields such as algorithms, logic, or database theory, to cutting-edge challenges of artificial intelligence and big data.
The study of algorithms and data structures helps to design efficient solutions to complex computational problems. Some of the current approaches include distributed, online, approximation, and randomized algorithms,
which contribute to solving practical problems in networking (e.g., server problems/wireless networks), resource allocation, or scheduling. An important
class of problems are those arising in big data processing, such as streaming or sketching, that involve massively distributed algorithms.
Logic in computer science focuses on problems related to the design and analysis of formal inference systems, such as their expressibility or decidability. Closely related to it is the field of semantics and formal methods developed to design and study software systems. This research is driven by applications in the design and reasoning about programming languages, and in formal verification of safety-critical software and hardware.
dr hab. Dariusz BiernackiAssistant Professor at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science (Institute of Computer Science).
He is also a co-founder of one of the most active research teams within the area of programming languages in Poland, with an established and continuously
growing international position. In addition, he maintains an active international collaboration with research institutions in Europe and primarily with
the French Inria.
dr Przemysław UznańskiAssistant Professor at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science (Institute of Computer Science, Department of Computational Complexity and Algorithms).
Algorithm design, big data processing.
prof. dr hab. Dariusz Grech Assistant professor at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy (Institute of Theoretical Physics).
prof. dr hab. Dariusz Grech Assistant professor at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy (Institute of Theoretical Physics).
Econophysics is the hybrid field that can be roughly defined as quantitative approaches using ideas, models, conceptual and computational methods of statistical physics and complex systems science applied to economic phenomena.
Apparently, the beginning of modern econophysics is directly connected with the physical analysis of financial markets focused on the non-Brownian or non-Wiener random walks. Currently, almost all major physical journals already accept econophysical works. It was during this period that an avalanche of econophysical publications set off.
dr hab. inż. Błażej WróbelAssistant Professor at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science (Institute of Mathematics).
very massive (of the masses of stars or larger), the appropriate dimension is four. Time becomes an extra coordinate adding to the three spatial coordinates. Well, then, are dimensions larger than four of any use in science? The answer is yes – high dimensional objects frequently appear in computer science, statistics and mathematics.
dr hab. Krzysztof GraczykProfessor at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy (Institute of Theoretical Physics, Department of Neutrino Physics).
dr hab. Aneta Firlej-BuzonProfessor at the Faculty of Letters. Head of the Institute of Scientific Information and Library Science and the Department of Bibliography and Scientific Information.
Our research initially focusing on scientific studies took on a new meaning when the methods of collecting, processing
and compiling data became commonplace in the digital age. Thus, we are interested in (among other things) the following topics: problems of collecting, processing and analysing data in order to read the description of the changes taking place, making scientific data available and presenting them, the issue of the digitalisation of archival data and unique resources of scientific literature,
the attempts to determine and process large data sets, the problem of the visualisation and presentation of scientific data and the volumetrics of collected data.
dr hab. Piotr Wnuk-LipińskiAssistant Professor at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science (Department of Computational Intelligence)
1. modeling complex systems, especially related to high frequency multidimensional time series, using Evolutionary Algorithms and data mining techniques,
2. language and speech processing using modern deep learning techniques,
3. artificial Intelligence for Games.
Their research on complex systems includes: mining frequent patterns in sequential or temporal data (such as ultra-high frequency time series), learning hidden states models for temporal data, enhancing multidimensional
time series prediction by Evolutionary Algorithms, and solving high dimensional optimization problems by using Evolutionary Algorithms, especially Estimation of Distribution Algorithms, with dimensionality reduction improvements.
dr hab. Tomasz KaliszProfessor at the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics. Head of the Chair of Executive Criminal Law.
virtual reality (VR) technology in education. The Virtual Crime Room offers the latest professional technological and methodological solutions that can be applied to the educational process. Its central element is an event simulator, recreating different variants of murders, suicides and accidents with different traces. In the simulated reality, the participants have to determine
and correctly secure traces inside and outside the building (in three weather variants).
At present, there is work on extending the module with the
possibility of using odour generators. The developed solutions aim to equip students/trainees in this system with the manual skills to perform complex visual inspection procedures (i.e. static and dynamic phases, marking traces, taking photographs, identifying and securing traces). At the same time, four individuals can participate in this, which is a number corresponding to the number of the team members securing the crime scene.
mgr Tomasz RóżańskiPhD student at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy (Institute of Astronomy).
A group of scientists from the Institute of Astronomy of the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy are working to address these problems, using machine learning techniques, deep learning in particular. This relatively new field has emerged due to a similar flood of data in the field of image and natural language processing and the development of highly parallel graphical processing units (GPUs) may now prove to be the key to new results in the field of stellar spectroscopy.
prof. dr hab. Adam Pawłowski Professor at the Faculty of Letters (Institute of Scientific Information and Library Science). Head of the Centre for Digital Humanities.
prof. dr hab. Adam Pawłowski Professor at the Faculty of Letters (Institute of Scientific Information and Library Science). Head of the Centre for Digital Humanities.
HEALTH - FROM GENE ANALYSIS TO DRUG DESIGN
HEALTH - FROM GENE ANALYSIS TO DRUG DESIGN
knowledge to design novel diagnostic and therapeutic
methods. Research conducted in the field of molecular biology, cell biology, biochemistry, genetics, molecular microbiology, biomedical engineering should result in the characterisation of the molecular bases of human diseases, particularly rare genetic diseases, systemic diseases, cancer, infectious and immune diseases. In the future, these data may be used to design novel therapeutic strategies used in the treatment of cancer, rare genetic diseases, diabetes, infectious and immune diseases, neurodegenerative diseases. Research conducted in the aforementioned fields will focus on designing novel drugs and their carriers as well as on discovering drug activity mechanisms, allowing for the efficient assessment and improvement of human health.
Faculty of Biological Sciences
The faculty is characterised particularly by renowned and age-diversified academic staff, a wide range of scientific disciplines enabling interdisciplinary research, high quality of research and education, unique units belonging
to the faculty (Natural History Museum, Museum of Man, Botanical Garden, Ecological Station in Karpacz, Ornithological Station in Ruda Milicka), good relations with external stakeholders as well as a broad educational offer.
The employees conduct interdisciplinary teaching in fields of study such as biology, human biology, genetics and experimental biology, microbiology and management of the natural environment.
prof. dr hab. Dariusz RakusProfessor at the Faculty of Biological Sciences. Head of the Department of Molecular Physiology and Neurobiology.
The scientists from the Department have discovered the mechanism through which the disruption of the non-metabolic role of ALDOA glycolytic enzyme leads to the death of cancer cells. The same effect may be achieved by stimulating the non-enzymatic function of FBP2 gluconeogenic enzyme. The researchers have also demonstrated that a proper mode of FBP2 interaction with its binding partners is a prerequisite for synaptic plasticity. In both cases – cancer cells and neurons – the proper mode of FBP2 interaction with binding partners (also with ALDOA) depends on its quaternary structure, which is regulated by metabolic signals produced by adjacent, non-cancerous and non-neuronal cells.
prof. dr hab. Artur Krężel Professor at the Faculty of Biotechnology. Head of the Department of Biological Chemistry.
prof. dr hab. Artur Krężel Professor at the Faculty of Biotechnology. Head of the Department of Biological Chemistry.
His research group aims to answer how metalloproteins obtain their metal ions under cellular conditions and how these ions regulate their function.
dr hab. Łukasz Opaliński Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Biotechnology (Department of Protein Engineering). Head of the First Team Project
dr hab. Łukasz Opaliński Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Biotechnology (Department of Protein Engineering). Head of the First Team Project
This method is now considered the future of anti-cancer therapies and the ADC market is one of the most rapidly growing branches of this type of treatment.
The results of their research may revolutionise the knowledge of the
causes of the rapid multiplication of cancer cells and, consequently, will make it possible to create more effective anti-cancer therapies. The biotechnologists are searching for new partner proteins that can regulate the FGF/FGFR system. Using high-throughput techniques, they have identified a number of such proteins and, at the same time, discovered a mechanism, completely unknown before, that impacts the transmission of signals by FGFR and their transport into cells.
prof. dr hab. Gabriela Bugla-PłoskońskaProfessor at the Faculty of Biological Sciences. Head of the Department of Microbiology.
1. the cytotoxicity and antibacterial activity of different antibacterials (including biocides, nanomaterials) and serum against aerobic and anaerobic bacteria;
2. the biodiversity of bacterial microbiota (aerobic and anaerobic bacteria) isolated from different sources;
3. the analysis of the mode of action of antibacterials (including nanomaterials like silver nanoformulations, graphene and biocides);
4. the analysis of the mechanism of resistance to antibacterials (including nanomaterials like silver nanoformulations);
5. the determination of the influence of various biological and chemical factors on a simple model organism (Galleria mellonella);
6. the study of the participation of bacterial surface structures in response to environmental factors;
7. the analysis of proteome and genome of selected microorganisms;
8. the analysis of the microbiological purity of products (fluids, cosmetics and others).
When conducting their analysis, the researchers use elaborate methods, such as experimental and computational prediction, phenotypic, molecular, genetic, proteomic and immunoenzymatic techniques. The results of the above-mentioned projects are numerous scientific publications and scientific cooperation, both with international and other Polish research centres. In the team of the Department of Microbiology also work dr Bartłomiej Dudek, dr Bożena Futoma-Kołoch, dr Katarzyna Guz-Regner, dr Anna Kędziora, dr Kamila Korzekwa, dr Aleksandra Pawlak and PhD students.
dr hab. Dorota Nowak Professor at the Faculty of Biotechnology (Department of Cell Pathology).
dr hab. Dorota Nowak Professor at the Faculty of Biotechnology (Department of Cell Pathology).
The struggle with cancer is one of the most important challenges to be faced by contemporary medicine and, more generally, by health care policy in Poland and in the world.
The low survival rate among patients is due to the high variability, diversity
and extraordinary invasiveness of this cancer. This last factor was the focus
of professor Dorota Nowak’s team, who has been working on melanoma
since 2015, having received more than PLN 600,000 as part of an OPUS
grant from the National Science Centre. The researchers focused on two receptors: EGFR, the epidermal growth factor receptor, and c-Met, the
hepatocyte growth factor receptor, under whose influence invadopodia are formed. Literature data suggest that their elevated levels are often observed in melanoma.
dr Joanna Piskorz Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Psychology, Department of Education and Upbringing Psychology).
dr Joanna Piskorz Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of Psychology, Department of Education and Upbringing Psychology).
At the University of Wrocław, laboratory experiments on pain were first carried out and the mechanisms of pain generation were studied before proceeding to the clinical testing phase.
Children of all ages can use the game. It involves remembering a few briefly
flashing items and then finding them among other moving objects. The game consists of several scenes. Each scene has a different background and number of flying objects to sustain the child’s interest in each level and increase the chance of distraction from pain.
dr Barbara Maciejewska / dr Tomasz OlszakFaculty of Biological Sciences
biology methods and genetic engineering, she is discovering novel proteins with antibacterial potential.
Dr Tomasz Olszak is a specialist in microbiology and the biology of bacteriophages. His research interests are focused on the phage resistance emergence in the model of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This issue covers both the assessment of genetic and phenotypic variations, including the effect of phage resistance on pathogen virulence. His studies shed new light on the mechanisms involved in the co-evolution of bacteria and phages, while also revealing how these processes are impacting the effectiveness of phage treatment - an appealing tool in clinics and veterinary areas.
Faculty of Biotechnology
Within the Faculty of Biotechnology, there is the Editorial Board of the international scientific journal Cellular and Molecular Biology Letters (CMBL), which has the highest Impact Factor among all scientific journals published in Poland. In the ranking of the educational portal “Perspektywy” in 2021, the faculty was ranked third among biotechnology faculties in Poland, just behind Warsaw University and Jagiellonian University.
bioinformatics, microbiology, immunology, virology, cell biology and plant physiology. A lot of effort is put into medicine-related research. To name a few, the faculty’s scientists study fibroblast growth factors and their receptors to establish new anti-cancer therapies, develop innovative drug carriers, study gum diseases and rare genetic disorders e.g. muscular dystrophies.
Some of our researchers search for new antibiotics and new antibiotic targets.
Among the applied research projects are those aiming at improving crop plants, e.g. flax and potatoes leading to the development of novel biocomposites and materials for dressings effective in treating slow healing wounds. They are also interested in biofuels, biosurfactants and food oriented biorefineries as well as in cellular organelles, e.g. plastids and mitochondria, particularly their evolution. Within the basic research areas, the researchers investigate protein structure and function, chromosome organisation and regulation of gene expression and other key cellular processes like glycosylation or photosynthesis.
dr Katarzyna Pietraszek-GremplewiczAssistant Professor at the Faculty of Biotechnology (Department of Cell Pathology). Head of Sonata Project.
Influence of obesity on the development of colon cancer.
MULTICULTURALISM - COOPERATION AND ITS STRUCTURES
MULTICULTURALISM - COOPERATION AND ITS STRUCTURES
barriers that separate representatives of different
cultures existing within one political community or within
a given structure of interests (economic, political, etc.).
However, already in antiquity, there were attempts to find
ways of cooperation between members of different cultures.
One aim of the interdisciplinary research on multicultural
societies conducted at the University of Wrocław
is to increase our knowledge of such attempts by studying
their examples from different historical periods and
regions. Another aim of this research is to present both
the circumstances of cultural conflicts and ways of solving
them by analysing the conditions of permanence and
change in intercultural relations. In undertaking their
studies, researchers react to tensions and the needs of
the social environment they belong to, seeing the tightening interactions between societies formed in different cultures as a cognitive challenge. They also focus on the systemic processes that are currently taking place in Europe and which are shaping its future. While each of the
historians, art historians, philologists, sociologists, political systems scholars and lawyers who belong to the Priority Research Area works within the boundaries of his or her respective field, they all take the achievements of other fields into consideration.
Olga TokarczukOlga Tokarczuk, the winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature, is on board the University of Wrocław.
On 2 July 2021, an agreement was signed between the University of Wrocław and Olga Tokarczuk Foundation, under which the Centre for Academic Research was established at the Faculty of Letters. Olga Tokarczuk Ex-Centre is a new research centre that will organise seminars, conferences and publishing activities. During the press briefing, Olga Tokarczuk stated: “My task is to look for non-obvious points of view, to stick my head out of the familiar horizon. I hope that the Ex-Centre at the University of Wrocław will allow us to stick our heads out of the sphere of fixed views and will be ex-centric in its nature and it will address topics we haven’t dreamt of so far”.
Cooperation between the Foundation and the University may be crucial for Polish humanities. Olga Tokarczuk Ex-Centre will bring together students and lecturers - not only those who wish to conduct research into gender equality, animal rights and the socio-cultural causality of literature but also those who wish to focus on as of yet undiscovered, ex-centric fields; fields that require a non-conventional perspective.
Olga Tokarczuk Ex-Centre. The Centre for Academic Research pursues its goals through, among other things, individual tutoring by the Nobel Prize winner herself, conferences, research programmes, seminars, publishing
and critical translation projects as well as series of masterclasses given by guests and residents of the Foundation.
Faculty of Letters
Among the most active units of the faculty are The Cognitive Research Center for Language and Communication, The Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Relations between Oral and Written Tradition, The Research Center for Postcolonial and Posttotalitarian Studies and The Centre for Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature, whose scholars in recent years alone have published many books in prestigious foreign publishing houses (e.g. Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak, Irena Barbara Kalla (eds.), Rulers of Literary Playgrounds: Politics of Intergenerational Play in Children’s Literature, Routledge, New York, 2021) and prestigious academic journals (special issue of History of Education and Children’s Literature, volume 15, number 2, 2020). Within the faculty, it has also been active for a short time Olga Tokarczuk Ex-Centre. The Centre for Academic Research, whose main objective will be supporting research on topics present in the works of our Nobel Prize Winner
prof. dr hab. Marcin Wodziński Professor at the Faculty of Letters (Jewish history and literature). Head of the Department of Jewish Studies.
prof. dr hab. Marcin Wodziński Professor at the Faculty of Letters (Jewish history and literature). Head of the Department of Jewish Studies.
The work is the first spatial analysis of Hasidism and, in fact, the very first cartographic representation of any mystical religious movement. It discusses the rise and expansion of Hasidism, its institutional forms, twentieth-century emigration to the New World, the crisis of two world wars and the Holocaust and, finally, the revival of Hasidism after 1945. The 74 large-format, full-colour maps and accompanying text, 99 illustrations, charts and tables present the spatial, physical and visual dimensions of the mystical Hasidic movement in a visually appealing, easy-to-understand format. The atlas demonstrates how geography informed the social organisation of Hasidism as well as its culture, spirituality and types of religious leadership. It is innovative in moving the focus of analysis from the leaders to the thousands of rank-and-file followers and investigating Hasidism in its historical entity from its emergence in the eighteenth century until today. It also applies an extensive and diversified source basis and the contemporary GIS tools (Geographic Information System) to arrive at a fully comprehensive picture of Hasidism. The atlas is a visually compelling and intellectually fascinating read. As one of the reviewers noted, the atlas “demonstrates that a photo is worth a thousand words and a map millions”.
dr Anna KuźnikAssistant professor at the Faculty of Letters (Institute of Romance Studies, Department of Translation Studies).
Linguistics, theoretical and descriptive translation studies, cognitive translation studies; defnition and classifcation of translation based on the theoretical and practical approach; the concept of translation and typology of translations elaborated by translation studies scholars and agents of translational labour market; defnition and typology of translation services; specialised translation; professionalisation in didactics of translation; sociology of work applied to translation-related jobs; methodology of empirical research in translation studies; translation competence and its acquisition.
prof. dr hab. Krzysztof NawotkaProfessor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of History).
the Great, the application of quantitative methods to epigraphic studies and the history of Greek cities on the western coast of the Black Sea. Unlike the works of many of his predecessors, the research of Krzysztof Nawotka
focuses on the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and not on the archaic age when Miletus was the main centre of Greek colonisation and the birthplace of world science (Ionian philosophy of nature).
The aim of the study of the history of Miletus in the Hellenistic and Roman periods is to trace the political and social transformations of the Greek city in confrontation with the great territorial powers – the Hellenistic monarchies, the republic and the Roman Empire. These studies show, among other things, that the period of the greatest spread and vitality of Greek democracy was the Hellenistic rather than, as many believe, the Classical age. Furthermore, they seek to link the process of degeneration and decline of democracy to the influence of Rome, which – in various ways – supported the rule of a wealthy oligarchy in Greek cities.
prof. dr hab. Dariusz AdamskiProfessor at the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics. Head of the Department of European Economic Governance Law.
Economic policies of the European Union, including their systemic and constitutional aspects.
prof. dr hab. Mirosław Kocur Professor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences.
prof. dr hab. Mirosław Kocur Professor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences.
Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics
The faculty is a leader in Poland, among other faculties, in terms of the number of scientific articles published annually in journals from the JCR Journal Citation Reports list, the so-called Philadelphia list. In addition, publications by faculty members are essential in terms of the internationalisation of research results. More than a dozen scientific journals are published here. All are available online free of charge. Extensive national and international cooperation is evidenced by the fact that the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics has signed over 100 agreements with other law faculties in Poland and abroad.
In addition to long-standing agreements with foreign universities, including Cambridge, Groningen, Bari, Sofia, Moscow, Lviv, Buenos Aires, Chicago, St. Petersburg, Prague, Grodno and Cologne, the faculty has signed nearly 100 agreements with law faculties at partner universities.
The high level of the faculty is also confirmed by the podium places occupied for 10 years in prestigious rankings of law faculties in Poland, organised by renowned newspapers and magazines. The scientific potential, staff and quality of education are particularly appreciated. Moreover, the University Legal Clinic at the University of Wrocław carries out essential activities, e.g. the students of the Clinic under the supervision of the academic staff provide professional legal advice to those interested.
dr Karolina KremensAssistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics.
Comparative criminal procedure, US criminal procedure, protection of individual’s rights in criminal process in particular regarding privacy protection, as well as the organization of prosecution service and role of the prosecutor in criminal proceedings.
prof. dr hab. Adam ChmielewskiProfessor at the Faculty of Social Sciences (Institute of Philosophy). Head of the Department of Social and Political Philosophy.
Virtual Researcher’s Workroom at the University of Wrocław
archives, museum collections, library resources) in the form of an image. Readers today expect much more – they want not only to read a digital version of a publication in a graphic form but also to search a document (by phrase or expression) with just one word. However, before addressing readers’ expectations, we first want to take care of the scientists, the authors of scientific publications. After all, it is from them that the whole creative process begins.
First of all, we want the researchers from the University of Wrocław to be able to convert the digital image of a scientific publication (a scan) into a digital text and then to publish
it, thereby increasing its visibility on the Internet and, consequently, its citation rate.
This is why the University of Wrocław is working on the Virtual Transcription Laboratory integrated with the Aggregator of Academic Works (ADN) and the Repository of the University of Wrocław. These three interconnected digital services will create a Virtual Researcher’s Workroom. Researchers will be able to prepare digital publications for online presentation and teach using source materials such as archives, manuscripts, old prints, etc., as well as publish their work and make it available to readers in Poland and abroad.
dr hab. Dominik KopińskiProfessor at the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics (Institute of Economic Sciences).
Sub-Saharan Africa, the role of natural resources in development, resource curse hypothesis, development aid, development economics, global public goods and international organisations, Sino-African relations, wealth inequalities in developing countries.
VR techniques in education – Virtual Crime Room
The Virtual Crime Room offers technological and methodical solutions that can be implemented
in the educational process. Its central element is a simulator of events, recreating different variants of murders, suicides and accidents with diversified traces.
In the simulated reality, the students have to determine and correctly secure traces inside and outside the object (in three weather variants). Currently, work is underway to expand the module to include the possibility of using odour generators. The solutions aim to equip students/trainees in this system with manual skills to conduct complex visual inspection procedures (i.e. static and dynamic phases, marking traces, taking
photographs, identifying and securing traces) with the simultaneous participation of four persons (i.e. in the number corresponding to the team securing the scene of the incident).
prof. dr hab. Przemysław WiszewskiProfessor at the Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences (Institute of History, Department of History Auxiliary Sciences and Archival Science).
His special point of interest is cultural and social changes in multi-ethnic border societies of mediaeval and early modern Central Europe. He coordinates the work of the Polish team of the project “Cuius Regio. An analysis of the cohesive and disruptive forces determining the attachment and commitment of (groups of) persons to and the cohesion within region” funded by the European Science Foundation. The fruit of the work was a synthesis consisting of five volumes of changes in regional identity and regional cohesion in Silesia (10th-20th centuries). He directed the project
“Motherland Silesia. The history of local communities in the context of regional, state and national identity (12th-21st centuries)”. The project focused on analysing the local history of several small towns and surrounding villages to trace the differences and similarities of these local trends in the history of the multi-ethnic region of Silesia. He manages the project “Mechanisms of building cohesion in multi-ethnic communities, 10th-21st centuries” with an international team of researchers from Spain, Portugal, Italy, Great Britain, the Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia, Japan and Poland in search for the reasons for the peaceful existence of multi-ethnic political communities/states “on the periphery” of medieval and early modern Europe. His last project is “Lexicon of Silesian artists and handicraft artists/Künstlerlexikon Schlesien” – dictionaries of artists-craftsmen from selected communes of Lower Silesia published in Polish and German.
dr hab. Patrycja Matusz Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences (Institute of International Studies, Department of Strategic and European Studies).
dr hab. Patrycja Matusz Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences (Institute of International Studies, Department of Strategic and European Studies).
Europe has a long history of migratory movements. However, over the few last years, the EU member states have received unprecedented numbers of migrants and asylum seekers, often in an unorderly way.
Currently, Patrycja Matusz has been involved in two Horizont2020 projects. The first one is ADMIGOV (Advance Alternative Migration Governance). This international research team searches for alternative approaches to migration governance, which can be better designed and put into practice. ADMIGOV studies the reality of existing policies and practices on the ground (fieldwork in various locations) to improve migration governance and propose recommendations for the future.