Earth and Planetary Research Centre (GeoPlanet)

The Centre suits perfectly well with the European Union policy of sustainable development, according to which the civilization progress of our continent, and ultimately of the whole world, should be made with full respect to the natural environment, with all its subsystems. The major aims of this policy, coordinated by the European Commission through the Environment Directoriate and the European Environmental Agency, are the study and monitoring of the state of the Earth, including the contamination of the hydrosphere and atmosphere, physical parameters of seas and oceans, and land cover changes.

In Europe, the consolidation of research potential has taken place through the last two decades. In the domain of Earth sciences, good examples are the IFREMER center in France, gathering several organizations dealing with marine research, and the GeoForschungsZentrum in Germany.

In Poland, the Earth science research has been dispersed among many institutes affiliated with the Polish Academy of Sciences, universities and research-and-development institutes. To enable the scientific community to cope with the complicated problems faced by the Earth sciences, keep pace and be competitive with scientific institutions abroad, it is necessary to integrate the efforts. If Polish scientific centres want to count in international (European) science, certain critical mass is needed.

A first step in this direction, undertaken jointly by the Institute of Geophysics, Space Research Center, Institute of Geological Sciences and Institute of Oceanology (all affiliated with the Polish Academy of Sciences), is the initiative to establish the Earth and Planetary Research Centre (GeoPlanet). An important factor linking the scientific activities of these institutions is their similar, quite often the same research methodology, applying the notions and scientific apparatus of physics, chemistry, mathematics, and geology. On the other hand, the research done in the institutions involved is to a large extent complementary, so the Centre will cover the main spectrum of the Earth and planetary sciences. The creation of the Centre, with its scientific and infrastructural potential, common data bases and research groups, will constitute a substantial added value, of importance on the country scale as well as in the international scientific market.

The Centre will integrate Polish research on physical and chemical processes within the Earth, its environment and in the Solar System; it will take an active part in international and domestic projects, and create own research tools. The Centre thus formed has an important role to fulfill in making observations of the Earth (lands and oceans) with the use of own network of observatories and ships, as well as developing models to interpret the data obtained. Parallel to the scientific activity, the Centre will be engaged in education of specialists on the post-graduate level, and popularization of knowledge about the Earth and Solar System in the society. On the international forum, the Centre will take advantage of the existing national research facilities and research ships, and participate in European and various bilateral and multilateral research projects enabling the use of world data bases in planetology, geophysics, oceanology, and geology.

The GeoPlanet Center will be governed the Council of Directors. Professor Paweł Rowiński, Director of the Institute of Geophysics, was elected its first Chairman.