The Center for Theoretical Physics of Polish Academy of Sciences has been founded in 1980. It has started with the scientific staff of four professors. They all came there from the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Warsaw University. The aim of the Center is to conduct research in broad range of topics of theoretical physics at the high international level. As such, the Center is supposed to maintain close collaborative contacts with other physicists, mostly from Universities with the special emphasis on smaller schools. This way the Center contributes to the advancement of physics in the whole country.

The quality of research is monitored periodically by the Committee for Scientific Research, the only Polish Government funding agency. The level of the state funding depends on the position in the ranking. Beginning with the firs ranking performed by KBN and including the one just concluded in the fall of 2001 the Center received the highest mark among the physics laboratories. In a public ranking of a weekly "Wprost", the Center was founded to be the best research laboratory in Poland regardless of the field.

The Center is small. At the moment it employs 8 professors. In recent years the appointment of new professors is made through competition. In sharp contrast to other Polish Institutes, younger researchers do not have permanent jobs. They are working on their doctorate and leave. Typically as post-docs, they spend a year or two abroad and after returning to Poland are given another year at the Center to find a permanent job. Some graduate students are employed elsewhere even while working on the PhD with us.

The Center was always involved in undergraduate teaching. All its professors thought courses at the Warsaw University, Warsaw Technical University and very frequently at foreign Universities in the US and Western Europe. Following the change of the legal situation after the demise of the communism in 1989, together with other institutes of the Academy, we have founded the College of Science, an undergraduate school providing an innovative curriculum in physics, mathematics and chemistry. Unlike the traditional Polish University it offered interdisciplinary programs combining mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry and even economics. Last year after 7 years as a non-public school (without government subsidies), the College of Science in 2000 became part of the second state university in Warsaw, the Cardinal Wyszyński University.

The Center has always maintained close contacts with many universities and institutes in Europe and in the United States. In fact more than 30% of the papers published by the members of the Center have foreign co-authors. Prof. J. Kijowski of the Center is a co-founder and a member of the Editorial Board of the "Journal of Geometry and Physics" published by the Elsevier Science Publishers.

The members of the Center have already participated in the 4th Framework of European Union. It has a nod of the 5th Framework Research Training Network "Preparation and Applications of Quantum-Degenerate Cold Atomic/Molecular Gases" and participates in research collaboration on quantum information theory.

The Center was the co-organiser of many big international meetings in Poland. Of particular importance is the series of Quantum Optics conferences held every four years since 1986 and the International Conference on Canonical and Quantum Gravity held every second year since 1995.

One of important roles of such a Center is to help raising the public awareness of science. Many of us are giving public lectures, write popular articles and talk to the media about the new scientific developments and its role for the general public. Professor Łukasz Turski is the recipient of the first European Physical Society medal for his public understanding of physics ( year 2000) as well as the Hugon Steinhaus prize for public science promotion in 1998 . He also presides, since 1997, over the Polish Public Radio Council for Education Programs. The Center is the main hub of yearly science Picnic, an open air science performance organised by the Public Radio Channel Radio BIS. The Center is also the national node of the Hands on Universe program which brings science (physics and astronomy) to high-schools classrooms. One of Center professors runs a private news agency that provides Polish media like e.g. Public Radio with the latest news from all branches of sciences.

Fields of Research

• quantum optics,
• condensed matter physics,
• theory of dynamical systems and chaos,
• quantum field theory,
• elementary particle physics.