On November 26, we hosted 20 representatives of the Ukrainian science and research sector at the Nencki Institute. The visit to the Institute was part of a week-long study trip to Poland entitled “Polish Research Landscape,” organized by the Polish Academy of Sciences Representative Office in Kyiv. The partner of this project, under the patronage of the Minister of Science and Higher Education, was the Leaders of Change Foundation. The aim of the event was to familiarize partner institutions with the characteristics of the Polish science and research sector.

The delegation, led by the Director of the Polish Academy of Sciences Representative Office in Kyiv, Mr. Mateusz Białas, included representatives of the Ukrainian Ministry of Science and Education, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, as well as research institutions and universities from Kiev, Kharkiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Sumy, Dnipro, Odessa, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Rivne.

The meeting at the Nencki Institute, chaired by Prof. Jolanta Rędowicz, consisted of two parts. The first part, entitled “Meet the Nencki Institute,” featured presentations on the structure and activities of the Institute: Prof. Monika Liguz-Lęcznar, Deputy Director for Scientific Affairs, presented the history, structure, and achievements of the Institute; Ms. Agnieszka Sudoł described the Spark Poland initiative; and representatives of three facility units presented their research capabilities: Dr. Jędrzej Szymański - the Tissue Structure and Function Imaging Laboratory, Prof. Bartosz Wojtaś - the Sequencing Laboratory, and Prof. Marek Wypych - the Brain Imaging Laboratory. Guests then had the opportunity to visit the above-mentioned laboratories.

In the second part, entitled “Longstanding Polish-Ukrainian scientific collaboration,” Prof. Adam Szewczyk, President of the Polish Scientific Society (PTBioch), spoke about the long-standing cooperation between PTBioch and the Ukrainian Biochemical Society and their joint initiatives (including the Jakub Karol Parnas Conferences organized since the early 1990s). Next, four researchers from Ukraine who have come to Poland in recent years shared their stories of their research stay at the Nencki Institute: Dr. Oksana Piven (from Kyiv, currently working in the laboratory headed by Prof. Paweł Dobrzyń), Dr. Liliia Lehka (from Lviv, currently working in the laboratory headed by Prof. Jolanta Rędowicz), Dr. Yuliana Hovorova (from Kharkiv, currently working in the laboratory headed by Prof. Bożena Kamińska-Kaczmarek) and Oksana Okhrymovych, MSc (from Odessa, currently working in the laboratory headed by Dr. Adam Kłosin).

After the official part of the event, guests had the opportunity to engage in informal conversations and discussions with representatives of the Institute.