JÓZEF MIANOWSKI FOUND - A Foundation for the Promotion of Science

In 1881, a group of former students of the Warsaw Main School (as the University of Warsaw was named during its short revival as a Polish institution of higher education in the 1860s) established a Fund bearing the name of Józef Mianowski, M.D., the resources of which were to support scholarly research. By so doing they honoured the memory of the Rector of the Main School, a professor of the Medical and Surgical Academies in Vilnius and in St. Petersburg who died in 1879. By the end of 19th century the Fund had become the most powerful Polish organization supporting research and publications. It continued its activities until the 1950s when it was dissolved. In 1991, the Józef Mianowski Fund was reestablished in the form of a Foundation for the Promotion of Science. The Fund has an Advisory Board, composed of delegates representing Polish Academy of Sciences, Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cracow, Warsaw Society of Arts and Sciences, Poznań Society of Friends of Arts and Sciences, The Scientific Society of Gdańsk, University of Warsaw, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, University of Łódź, Nicholas Copernicus University, Toruń, Marie Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Catholic University of Lublin, Warsaw University of Technology and Wrocław University of Technology.

The MIANOWSKI FUND publishes the annual “Polish Science: Requirements, Organization and Development”, a continuation of the periodical which appeared in the years 1918-1947. This publicaton is devoted to current problems and perspectives of Polish science, as well as matters concerning organization and financing of the scientific research. Papers relating to history of science, biographies of eminent academics and annual reports on activities of the Mianowski Fund from a integral part of the periodical. Each volume contains also a list of visiting scholars, supported in the framework of Scholarship Programme in the past year.

The MIANOWSKI FUND organizes symposia devoted to the study of the progress of knowledge, as well as to the questions of organization and financing of scientific research and those dealing with history of science.

Within the framework of its activities the MIANOWSKI FUND offers scholarschip grants designed mainly for scholars from Central and East European countries. These grants are sponsored by primarily the FOUNDATION FOR POLISH SCIENCE. Over 1994-2004 the programme was also strongly supported by the STEFAN BATORY FOUNDATION.

The Found site: http://www.mianowski.waw.pl/?lang=en