About the Faculty
Faculty of Forestry, one of the 12 faculties at Warsaw Agricultural University, is the oldest and the biggest in Poland. History of our Faculty has started almost two centuries ago. Some brief information on history of the Faculty could be find at these pages.
The majority of lectures and classes are given in the faculty building (number 34) at the Ursynów campus. Part of teaching is organized in Experimental Forest Station in Rogów (LZD). This place was created to fulfill the educational and research needs of the Faculty.
At the end of the 2003, 112 people have been working at the Faculty. The 90 of them were university teachers, among them there are 20 professors, five more persons obtained their post doctoral (habilitation) degree. Almost 50 persons, after defending their Ph.D. thesis, gained that diploma. Technical and administrative crew is rather modest, amount 27.
Teaching activity of our organization is very extensive. Every year we are enrolling about 300 students (studying in regular way or extra-mural). The last form, extra-mural, is created mostly for the staff of State Forest, interesting in improving their former education.
At this moment, difficult task of reconstruction of study curricula is taking place. WAU signed the Bologna agreement, and like the majority of European universities, is preparing detailed program for two kinds of teaching – ending with bachelors/engineers or continued later in M.Sc. study.
The Faculty offers two kinds of PhD studies. The first one, called "stationary", usually offers a small fellowship for candidates bearing M.Sc. in Forestry or biological sciences. The duty of successful candidate is to prepare Doctoral Thesis and defend them within the 4-year period. In this period student is obliged to act as TA simultaneously to working on diploma. The second one is offered to candidates working in State Forest, National Parks, Education and others. It requires a tuition fee. The study program is constructed in such way, that grad student can still “keep on” with his job. The duty of Faculty is to give advisor and help in acquiring more theoretical knowledge.
Both kinds of these graduate studies are quite popular. At this moment we have more than 40 students in different stages of program.
The Faculty is engaged in international programs SOCRATES, ERASMUS, from a few years we belong to the SILVA Network, and starting from 2005 - to the Euroligue for Life Sciences (ELLS). On the basis of bilateral agreements we cooperate with many Universities and forestry faculties in Europe and all over the world. Our research and teaching partners are, among others, Universität für Bodenkultur Wien (BOKU), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University (KVL), University of Helsinki, University of Joensuu, Kymenlaakso Polytechnic, Wageningen University, Albert-Ludwig-Universität Freiburg, University of Applied Sciences Eberswalde, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences SLU), Universitá degli studi di Firenze and many others.
Very important part of the Faculty’s activity is research. In 2002 our scientists have been working in 98 different research subjects. From them, the funds on 66 have been granted from our own Ministry (M. of Education and Sport), the rest (32) have been supported by outer sources in form of grants. The money have been given mostly by Committee of Scientific Investigation (KBN) and State Forests. As one of the results of these activity, a few hundreds of scientific papers were published in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings and other places.
The Faculty is member of IUFRO (from twenties of previous century) and EFI – from the very beginning.
Among six didactic and research units of the Faculty there are five Departments and one independent Division.
