Toruń – city of science

For hundreds of years now Toruń has constantly remained a significant centre of culture and science. Here Nicholas Copernicus was born to later become an eminent astronomer, mathematician and an economist, one of the greatest contemporary scholars and the author of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, in which he presented his heliocentric theory of the universe.

Also here in Toruń was founded in 1594 the most illustrious school in Royal Prussia – the Protestant Gymnasium, in which lectured such renowned professors as Jan Turnowski – a well-known theologian representing the religious Unity of Bohemian Brethren, Pavel Stranský from Litomierzyce – a lawyer and historian expelled from Bohemia, Henryk Schäve – the rector of the Gymnasium, polyhistor and supporter of the philosophy of Descartes, Krzysztof Hartknoch and Marcin Böhm – eminent historians of Prussia and Poland, Jerzy Piotr Schultz – author of treatises on the political history of Poland, Ulryk Schober, Konrad Graser and many other outstanding scholars. The school’s programme of study included such academic subjects as law, philosophy, theology, classical Greek, geography, biology and sometimes medicine, Polish and foreign languages. The Academic Gymnasium conducted important research and engaged in publishing (some publications are stored in the Copernicus Municipal Library, including a three-volume collection of documents and pedagogical treatises from the period of Enlightenment called Institutio literata). All the state and private elementary schools in Toruń were subordinate to the Rector of the Gymnasium, owing to which a unified educational system was created in Toruń, which was not the case of any other town of that time. During a dispute in the Academic Gymnasium the rightness of Copernicus’ heliocentric theory had been confirmed for the first time in Poland (1660). At the time Gymnasium was in operation, several periodicals with articles written by Gymnasium scholars were published in Toruń. Most probably from 1740 (or earlier) the Gymnasium had its own observatory for regular measurements of air temperature and other meteorological parameters.

Also in Toruń the first attempt was made to found a university in Royal Prussia (1595). Backing an initiative put forward by Mayor H. Stroband, representatives of gymnasiums from Toruń, Gdańsk and Elbląg submitted a proposal to found a university in Toruń. By expanding the Academic Gymnasium, Mayor Stroband and other scholars intended to convert it to a Protestant academy – a “national school” for the entire Republic of Poland. The proposal was sent to the general synod of Polish Protestants. No concrete decision other than a synod’s resolution on the necessity to set up a national school was made, however.

The creative spirit displayed by the people of Toruń would manifest itself in many areas. Here was born and spent his early childhood years Samuel Thomas Sömmerring (1755-1830), an Academic Gymnasium graduate, who later became an eminent anatomist, medical doctor and physiologist of the turn of the 18th and the 19th centuries, the author of a five-volume handbook of the anatomy of the human body and the constructor of the electroplated telegraph. The list of most illustrious Torunians also includes the name of Samuel Bogumił Linde (1771-1847), the author of the first six-volume Historical Dictionary of the Polish Language, a co-founder of Ossolineum, one of Poland’s most prestigious libraries. Toruń was the place where Paweł Guldeniusz (1588-1658), an outstanding royal pharmacists at the courts of kings Władysław III Waza and Jan Kazimierz, practised his profession. Guldeniusz is the author of the first Polish-German-Latin Dictionary of Pharmacy comprising descriptions of medications and diseases of the time.

Among the present heirs to the intellectual legacy of Nicholas Copernicus are: a Nicolaus Copernicus University graduate Prof. Aleksander Wolszczan, an astronomer, Director of the NCU Centre for Astronomy in Piwnice near Toruń, the discoverer of the first planets ever found outside our solar system and Maciej Konacki, also an NCU graduate, an astrophysicist, the discoverer of the first exoplanet in a triple star system, a designer  – together with NCU Krzysztof Goździewski and Andrzej Maciejewski from the University of Zielona Góra – of a new method of finding planets outside our solar system.

The rich academic tradition of Toruń is cherished and continued at Nicolaus Copernicus University, the largest in northern Poland, and in four other institutions of higher education, which are outside the public sector. They are: the College of Banking, the College of Social and Media Culture, Toruń Diocese Seminary and Toruń Higher School.

Nicolaus Copernicus University was founded in 1945.  NCU of Toruń is composed of fourteen faculties: the Faculty of Biology and Earth Sciences, the Faculty of Chemistry, the Faculty of Languages, the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Informatics,  the Faculty of the Humanities, the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, the Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management, the Faculty of History, the Faculty of Law and Administration, the Faculty of Fine Arts, the Faculty of Theology and three faculties of the Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz: the Medical Faculty, the Faculty of Pharmacy and the Faculty of Health Sciences.

The total enrolment at the University is 40,000 students, who can choose from among 54 areas of study and over 100 specialisations. Over 50 postgraduate programmes are also available. NCU enrols over 10,000 students every year. The number of graduates the university has released since it was founded has exceeded 100,000. Students have the choice of, for example, the only Polish university courses in Arts and Conservation of Works of Art and Architecture, Medicine, Engineering and the Humanities, where cross-department and interdisciplinary courses are on offer.

Every year NCU organises ca 100 conferences and symposia attended by an impressive number of several hundred scientists from Poland and abroad. The Ministry of Science and Information offers sumptuous grants to the NCU academic staff, who implement over 190 projects every year within the framework of the ministerial programme.  NCU maintains contacts with many universities and research organizations on all continents; individual members of the staff participate in international educational and research programmes, including subsequent EU Framework Programmes. The academic staff travel on study and lecture tours, attend conferences and engage in research in many countries. Every year about 1,900 such trips are made. Simultaneously, the University is visited by about 500 foreign researchers from various countries and continents. Many NCU university staff are members of prestigious international research organizations and cultural societies. The NCU Rector represents the University in the European University Association.

The University has modern research facilities within the university structure. The staff also work in other research centres in Poland and abroad, for example, in Spitsbergen. Since the 1990s a 32-metre radiotelescope, the third largest in Europe, has been in operation in the Centre for Astronomy located in Piwnice near Toruń run by Prof. Aleksander Wolszczan. The creation of the National Laboratory for Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics enabling Polish physicists to carry out most advanced research has been the most recent confirmation of the high rank held by the University.

The incredible popularity of the Toruń Festival of Science and Art and the “Medicalia” held in Bydgoszcz among the public proves how important for the whole region is research and education. Highly gifted young people from Poland get a rare chance to study at the public Academic Gymnasium supervised by the University.

The University offers short-term (usually lasting several weeks) or long-term (lasting a year) courses of Polish language and culture to foreign guests who either study or are employed at the University and to those foreigners who are interested in learning the language.