A year full of unexpected situations and the related challenges is behind us. We had to learn how to teach, conduct research, study, organize events, celebrate, and simply function in a world of pandemic restrictions. But this was not exclusively or even mostly the year of the coronavirus. Let us recall the most important moments of the past 12 months.

January

In January, we were introduced to the new composition of the WUT Student Self-Government.

We celebrated the special award in the Interstudent 2020 competition and our success in the AI Games hackathon.

We were also delighted by the “Music of the World” New Year’s concert and by the Karnavauli Grand Student Carnival Ball.

This was also recruitment time for the courses starting in the summer semester.

We were proud to cover the research conducted by our scientists: a unique optical microscope and the search for the Archives of the Union of the Polish Youth “Zet”.

February

In February, we formally inaugurated the “Excellence Initiative – Research Universityat WUT, aimed at supporting the best Polish universities and enhancing their competitive edge on the European and global arena.

That month also brought news of many successful exploits: awards of the Minister of Development, awards of the Minister of Science and Higher Education, Fulbright scholarships, winners of the Przegląd Techniczny magazine’s Golden Engineer readers’ choice awards.

The robotics student research club did excellent at the international Carolo-Cup competition, and the WUT Racing team showed the world its latest racing car.

Prof. Rajmund Bacewicz (Vice-Rector for Research between 2012 and 2020), Jarosław Gowin (the then Minister of Science and Higher Education), Prof. Jan Szmidt (Rector between 2012 and 2020) and Prof. Małgorzata Lewandowska (Head of the Managing Team of IDUB)

March

March is traditionally the month of meetings with student candidates. In 2020, we were able to talk to them in Warsaw during the International Education Fair organized by the “Perspektywy” Education Foundation. This was also when we celebrated the awards in the Genius Universitatis competition for the most creative university recruitment campaigns.

We wrote of the first airfield tests of the AOS-H2 motor glider and of our finalist in the FameLab competition.

In March, due to the coronavirus, WUT started operating mostly on a remote basis. This is how classes were held, credits were obtained, and meetings were organized. Our scientists, students, and alumni rushed to help hospitals and clinics in need of protective gear.

April

In April, we repeatedly broke news of numerous WUT teams helping fight the pandemic. People from our University community printed masks, parts of face shields and ventilators, analyzed data, made available their own equipment, and worked on innovative solutions such as the helmet for non-invasive ventilation of COVID-19 patients.

However, the coronavirus did not monopolize our attention.

We celebrated a major success – our scientists from the team headed by Prof. Krzysztof Zaremba were among the authors of the publication in the prestigious “Nature” journal. The outcomes of the international neutrino physics experiment T2K (Tokai to Kamiokande) were considered an important step in studying the difference between matter and antimatter in the universe.

In April, we announced the first grant competitions as part of the “Excellence Initiative – Research University” program, and more specifically as part of seven Priority Research Areas.

We also learnt the vote results for WUT’s second Participation Budget Scheme. 

May

In May, there was no shortage of further campaigns to support the fight against the pandemic. We covered news of face shields being printed, equipment being made available, and of a WUT team which had started working at a diagnostic lab conducting SARS-CoV2 tests.

Our scientists won competitions held by the Foundation for Polish Science, the National Science Centre, and the National Centre for Research and Development. We wrote of battery industry developments, to which our experts had also contributed, and of the main award in the international architecture competition for our alumni’s team.

May also saw the signing of the contract to build laboratories on the premises of a WUT airfield in Przasnysz.

This was also a month in which we organized a fully virtual Open Door Day for our student candidates, and partly started to restore the normal operating mode of the WUT.

May ended with great news – our students won two main awards in the nationwide student design competition Konkurs Konstrukcji Studenckich (KOKOS). The e-MaksPower racing car and OKOŃ submarine are projects that gained recognition of the competition jury.

June

In June, we learnt that the newly elected Rector of the Warsaw University of Technology was Prof. Krzysztof Zaremba – Dean of WUT Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology (2012-2016 and 2016-2020), former Head of the Department of Nuclear and Medical Electronics (2004-2016), member of the team that prepared the request to grant a Research University status to the Warsaw University of Technology (2018-2019).

That month brought much success to our scientists, students and alumni: IEEE AESS Fred Nathanson Memorial Radar Award for Prof. Mateusz Malanowski, awards in the Competition for Young Engineers, awards for theses in bioinformatics and in machine learning or data analysis, scholarships of the Minister of Science and Higher Education for our young scientists, and medals of the SAE AeroDesign inter-faculty student research club.

We reported on how our scientists would help in the work on food safety. We proudly presented Poland’s first VCSEL prototype, a new start-up aiming to commercialize aviation engineering innovation, and a publication in the prestigious “Nature Photonics” journal.

Prof. Krzysztof Zaremba, WUT Rector in the 2020-2024 term

July

In July, the ENHANCE alliance, of which our University is a member, was among the successful candidates in the second call of the European Commission’s “European Universities” Initiative.

The Warsaw University of Technology had been ranked third among all universities and first among technical universities in the Higher Education University Ranking published by the “Perspektywy” educational monthly.

Moreover, as it turned out following a check, as many as 19 WUT courses ranked first in “Perspektywy” magazine’s Ranking of Engineering Studies.

In July, we started recruitment for full-time undergraduate courses, and we organized two further editions of Open Door Days online.

It was time to sum up the first grant competitions as part of the “Excellence Initiative – Research University” program.

Our scientists and students enjoyed further successes. Prof. Mariusz Malinowski of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering received an award from the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IES). Juliusz Bojarczuk won the Student Nobel, and Sebastian Machera – the European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS). The Melavio Avionics student research club won the Droniada contest.

We wrote of an alternative to chemotherapy, WUT Yeast Collection, the application of biogas in advanced internal combustion engines, and of a prestigious program implemented in partnership with Microsoft.

August

August was the last month of the term in office of the Rector, Vice-Rectors and Deans elected in 2016. Prof. Jan Szmidt officially handed over his office to Prof. Krzysztof Zaremba.

Earlier on, we were introduced to new WUT Vice-Rector candidates.

In August, we learnt of our student winning one of the VCLA International Student Awards, and of being awarded the Ministry of Science and Higher Education’s Diamond Grant.

We learnt further details of the ENHANCE alliance and submitted new initiatives as part of the Excellence Initiative – Research University program.

Recruitment was a major topic. Simultaneously, enrolment continued for full-time and extramural (undergraduate and graduate) courses as well as for Doctoral Schools.

September

September marked the beginning of the new term in office of the new Rector – Prof. Krzysztof Zaremba and of new Vice-Rectors: Prof. Mirosław Karpierz (Vice-Rector for General Affairs), Prof. Mariusz Malinowski (Vice-Rector for Research), Prof. Jan Słyk (Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs), Prof. Adam Woźniak (Vice-Rector for Development), Prof. Robert Zalewski (Vice-Rector for Student Affairs) and Prof. Renata Walczak (Vice-Rector for Branch in Płock).

We were also introduced to new Deans of Faculties.  

In Sieraków near Przasnysz, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the WUT Aviation Research Centre’s Lab building and the 2nd Landing Accuracy Cup of the Dean of the Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering was organized.

Our scientist was awarded the prestigious MSCA Individual Fellowship. Seven researchers from WUT joined the ranks of those awarded in the LIDER program. Success came to students from the Robotics student research club and to a Ph.D. student from the Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology.

The University took part in Festiwal Nauki (Polish festival of science) and in virtual fairs for high school graduates. We organized a drive-in cinema at WUT for the first time. 

October

We started October with the gala inauguration of the academic year. We were unable to all meet live, but the online transmission made us feel together.

The inauguration’s guest was President of Poland Andrzej Duda, who presented national decorations to deserving employees of our University.

We proudly wrote about our scientists whose research had contributed to the palaeontological discovery, and about PhotonHub Europe, which will help in the deployment of photonic technologies in European industry. The University also became a fully-fledged participant of the AEgIS experiment.

In October, we celebrated the victory in the eights rowing race, and success in the best thesis competition for architecture, cartography, geomatics and geoinformation, as well as digitization. 

We were happy to report the Award of the Electronic Economy Congress and “Promyk Słońca” Foundation, and the official groundbreaking ceremony for the Good Will Farm, a compound consisting of innovative buildings for people with disabilities.

We also announced the second edition of research grant competitions as part of the Priority Research Areas.

WUT co-organized the 46th Extraordinary Congress of Polish Physicists and participated in a virtual Innovation Night.

Students showed their projects and passions during the KONIK fair of student research clubs and student organizations, for the first time in an online version.

In October, the difficult epidemiological situation made us move most of our teaching to virtual space again, for the second time in 2020.

Our scientists joined the fight against the pandemic again – helping pupils learn maths, and helping all of us protect ourselves from getting infected.

Inauguration of the 2020/2021 academic year, photo credit: Agnieszka Kępa/ TVPW

November

In November, we celebrated the WUT Day. Things were different from what we were used to, as the formal session of the Senate was held online. What did not change, though, is that, like every year, the winners of the WUT Medal and of the Young Scientist Medal as well as the winners of the Siemens Prize were announced.

The WUT Day celebrations included the announcement of Golden Chalk winners, the unveiling of plaques as part of A Bench with History project, a premier of the “Tempest” staged by our Theatre and, a Quiz on WUT.

November saw the first meeting of rectors of “European Universities” selected in the first and second call of the initiative. We also learnt we would have our student representation in the managing structure of the ENHANCE alliance.

We celebrated the awards in the StRuNa 2020 competition, awards for the best theses about Warsaw development, and nominations in the Klub Twórców Reklamy (Ad Creators’ Club) competition.

The University got involved in the “Poles Change the World. Innovation Hub. Combining science with business” project.

December

In December the “Nature” journal featured a publication co-authored by a WUT team. It deals with research conducted as part of the ALICE experiment in CERN Large Hadron Collider.

We wrote of the innovative cybersecurity projects, of the idea of how to make hotel stays more attractive, and of the unique prefabricated pavement. We boasted new ideas meant to help in the fight against coronavirus: our engagement in the efforts of the MOCOS team, which analyses pandemic development and the technology for fast SARS-CoV-2 detection in biological samples. We also joined the collection of computer hardware for pupils in need.

Our University was the partner of the academic conference Perspektywy Women in Tech Summit.

The Warsaw University of Technology also proved to be one of the universities most likely to be chosen by student candidates in Poland. Internet of Things Engineering was among courses enjoying the greatest success at recruitment. Our courses also obtained Polish Accreditation Commission’s Certificates of Educational Excellence. 

In December, we learnt the composition of the University Council for the 2021-2024 term of office.

The end of the year was, as usual, a time to resolve a number of competitions. We learnt who had won the Innowator Mazowsza (Mazovia region’s innovation) awards. Our students and alumni were among the winners of Polish Space Agency’s competition, competition of the “Złoty Medal Chemii” (Golden Medal in Chemistry), competition of the Students’ Parliament of the Republic of Poland, competition of the Society of Polish Town Planners, and the MEWa competition.

We derived great joy from winning the first place in the EngiRank ranking and from moving up the QS EECA ranking, and the final of the Quiz on WUT was sure to bring excitement.