Academic boom

University vice chancellors are investing in new buildings all over the place, without any fear of demographic decline, because for the first time they find they are rolling in cash

As the new academic year gets under way, colleges are making sure that students are fully aware of what has been or is being built with EU (and other) funding. The new Adam Mickiewicz University campus in Poznań has been making the loudest noise in the media. The faculties of geography, geology, physics, biology, mathematics and information technology now have new buildings in Morasek at the city’s northern border, where the university also has a new gymnastics hall. Finance minister Zyta Gilowska, who was present during the opening ceremony, made much fuss about the new investment, but not because of its impressive dimensions. She turned it into a pretext to open her party’s election campaign in the Wielkopolska province, but this rather back-fired on her when it came out that she had not voted in favour of the investment as a parliamentary deputy, abstaining instead.

Much has also been happening in other Polish universities and colleges.

130 hectares of education

Jagiellonian University of Kraków, Poland’s oldest university, has unusually ambitious building plans. Campus II is being enlarged, with the building of Paderevianum II – which is to serve philologists – on ul. Krupnicza, and at a cost of EUR 18 mln.

But the most important university project in the Małopolska province is the University’s Campus III, which is still under construction. The project involves the development of a 130-ha plot between Zakrzówek and Pychowice, 4 km from the city centre.

The academic section already holds a nature research centre, biological sciences complex and also an institute of geography and spatial management. Two further buildings are currently being constructed: a faculty of mathematics and information technology, according to a concept of architects Lesław Manecki and Jerzy Gurawski as well as a faculty of management and social communication designed by a Polish-British group from the Kraków EKSPO office and Anshen Dyers of London. Both buildings are to open in 2008. Katarzyna Pilitowska of Jagiellonian University told us the University had received PLN 95 mln from the state budget to cover investment costs.

Work on further parts of the campus is to start in Kraków in early 2008: a faculty of physics, astronomy and applied information technology (according to a concept prepared by architects from Wasko-Projekt) and also an institute of zoology (designed by the Czora & Czora studio).

Politowska enumerates further plans in the pipeline: a faculty of chemistry, an institute of geological sciences, an institute of botany, a natural history museum, a new botanic garden, the Małopolska biotechnology centre and possibly one of the most important centres for the development of physics in Poland – a synchrotron radiation centre.

Halls of residence for 2,000 students are to appear within Campus III, as well as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with a 1,500 seater hall. The entire development plan is to be finished sometime 2013 and 2015, at a cost of more than PLN 800 mln, out of which more than 600 mln is coming out of the state purse. Around 15,000 students will be using the Campus III buildings once completed.

Science and business synergy

The thing which distinguishes this university campus from other such projects is its connection with the technology park being built nearby within the local Special Economic Zone, and will soon be attracting companies to Kraków which want to invest there. One of these is Motorola. A ‘life science’ park (with both an office and laboratory character) for the Jagiellonian Innovation Centre will be built here, as will a central server unit for Onet (the largest of its kind in Poland), as well as the head office of Ericpol Telecom – the telecommunication software manufacturer.

The Papal Academy of Theology is also investing in the Kraków suburb of Pychowice, starting with a library. The composition of the urban academy is similar to ul. Kanoniczna in Kraków, where the Academy’s main building is presently situated. The scale of the principal promenade – Theologians’ Street – in the project is similar to that of ul. Kanoniczna. It is to link the main avenue of Campus III – called Nobel Prize Winners’ Avenue – to the north of the plot with the planned academic courtyard and library to the south.

From club to club

Many changes are being planned around the Proxima music club on ul. Żwirki i Wigury in Warsaw. The competition for a new Warsaw University campus in the Ochota district was decided in August, with the first prize going to the vision of prof. Stefan Kuryłowicz. The central point is to be an amphitheatre park housing a students’ club. The old buildings will be either demolished or entirely transformed. The 12-ha plot today holds barracks, two student hostels dating to the 1970s and the equally old Proxima club building. A campus for 10,000 students of exact sciences is to be constructed in their place.

That apart, the Ochota projects are to start with the construction of the education-and-science New Technologies Centre (NTC) at Warsaw University, in conjunction with the Medical Academy, Warsaw University of Technology and institutes of the Polish Academy of Science. A Warsaw School of Advanced Technologies is to be an integral part of the NTC, in which a notable number of leading Polish scientific groups will be located (DNA research, physics and related sciences, as well as several of a biological and chemical nature).

The NTC investments programme comprises construction of three buildings with a total utility space of around 50,000 sqm, on a 6.2 ha plot belonging to Warsaw University. The first stage of construction, which is to last until 2010, will cost PLN 300 mln, with the total cost of the entire Ochota-based college investments together with prof. Kuryłowicz’s campus expected to be PLN 800 mln. Warsaw University’s contribution – in the form of land and infrastructure – is estimated to be around PLN 100 mln. Financial backing by the ministry of science and higher education ha been secured, although the greatest source of financing is expected to come mainly out of EU infrastructural funds.

The university will also be investing in a new building for faculties of languages on ul. Browarna, though no official details on the scale of this project are available.

Wealthy Agriculture, ambitious Technology

Warsaw’s Academy of Agriculture has been pouring money into its campus in Ursynów district for the past 10 years, obtained by selling some of the land and real estate it owns in the Mokotów district.

A library has already been constructed in Ursynów, together with six new buildings for separate faculties. A water centre specializing in hydraulic sciences will be the next to appear, followed by a stadium and conference centre. The EU is to ensure 85 pct of the money to finance construction.

The Warsaw University of Technology also has several ambitious plans in the city. It wants to develop a 41-ha site on ul. Batorego, where the Stodoła students club is presently housed, and where a squalid football stadium exists behind it. A show and sports hall seating 2,000 is to replace it.

A4 motorway link

There is much talk in southern Poland, especially in Upper and Lower Silesia, of setting up a local ‘Silicon Valley’. A concept has even emerged to turn the A4 motorway into some kind of a transmission belt of knowledge and research in southern Poland, linking Wrocław, the Katowice conurbation, Kraków and Opole. Interested local government officials regularly stress that all investment in schools of higher education operating in that part of Poland are subordinated to the concept, since the ‘Valley’s’ urban development structure will be only loosely defined, with scientists having to cooperate in much closer personal contact. Of even greater importance is the fact that there are 125 various types of colleges in the four southern provinces of Lower Silesia, Upper Silesia, Małopolska and Opole boasting 75,000 graduates yearly.

The most important higher education investments in Wrocław are envisaged around the European Institute of Technology. Wrocław wants to propose Brussels a finished product – the Wrocław Research Centre (otherwise EIT) – a name which covers a comprehensive programme of regional development with stress on education and innovation in the widest sense. The project includes construction of a Lower Silesian materials and biomaterials centre at a cost of EUR 140 mln and an Environmental Library of Strict and Technical Sciences to meet requirements of Innovational Management at a cost of EUR 25 mln.

Wrocław University of Technology alone will spend PLN 100 mln on a Geo centre of geological sciences by 2013, accompanied by new student hostels and a new library to cost PLN 50 mln.

In Upper Silesia, pride of place goes to the Silesian University and Academy of Economics in Katowice. A common science information centre and academic library is to cost PLN 82.6 mln and to be constructed by 2010. This project figures on the priorities list of Silesia Province – the contract for additional EU financing of the investment is planned for September or October 2007, according to Silesian University spokesperson Jolanta Talarczyk.

One of the more interesting investments in the science sector of Poland’s largest conurbation is also the Silesian Interuniversity Centre of Education and Interdisciplinary Research in Chorzów city also to cost more than PLN 80 mln and be commissioned by 2013. Jolanta Talarczyk elaborates: “The project is a Silesian University initiative, the principal goal of which is integration of the teaching potential of Silesian colleges and partner institutions. The centre will house certified laboratories and an estimated 1510 students in the first year”.

The construction of a ‘scientific and didactic centre of modern language institute’ in Sosnowiec (PLN 60.5 mln) is also worth remarking among currently implemented investments by the Silesian college. Construction was started in 2006 and is to conclude in 2008. Modern language studies in Silesian University’s faculty of languages today are spread through Sosnowiec in provisionally adapted buildings, one faculty office of which is said to have served as an SS interrogation unit during World War II.

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Karol P. Bogusz