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About the Institute

The Institute of History was launched in the 1930-1931 academic year as a research and teaching entity carrying out interdisciplinary research into broadly defined history and employing the best Polish specialists. The aim of the Institute’s teaching activity is to educate professionals who will acquire numerous skills from a variety of academic disciplines, professionals able not only to ask questions to the past, but also to explain the present by following the birth and course of social, political, economic and cultural processes in various societies over centuries. Today, the Institute is the biggest university institute of history in Poland and one of the best humanities research centres in the country.

It has a staff of nearly eighty academics. In addition, its research and teaching activities involve a dozen or so professors emeritus as well as a group of historians from outside the Institute. Its professors supervise several dozen doctoral students who are preparing their doctoral theses. All historians working at the Institute of History, University of Warsaw, use their own research interests and experiences in the classes they conduct. This is why the Institute can offer a variety of topics to its ca 500 students pursuing full-time, part-time, evening and post-graduate programmes. The main direction of research carried out a the IH UW comprises history of Poland from time immemorial to the present as seen against the background of European history. In addition, the IH UW conducts unique research into the ancient world, non-European civilisations and auxiliary sciences of history. The results of this research have a major impact on the image of Polish historical scholarship.