Państwowy Instytut Geologiczny jako państwowa służba geologiczna – sto lat w służbie Niepodległej

Abstract

Polish Geological Institute as the national geological survey – hundred years at the service for Poland.A b s t r a c t. The PolishGeological Institute was established in 1919 as the national geological survey within the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The initiative of a group of parliament members to appoint the Polish Geological Institute was supported by the Polish Parliament on May 30, 1919, and the official opening of the Institute took place on May 7, 1919. Two years later the PGI status and budget were accepted by the Polish government and Józef Morozewicz has received director’s nomination from the Head of State Józef Piłsudski. In March 1938, the President of Poland accepted a new decree concerning geological survey of Poland which was composed of the Polish Geological Institute and the State Geological Council. The role of the PGI grew and the budget substantially increased, but this positive trend was stopped due to the beginning ofWorldWar II. During the first post-war years, regional and basic studies made it possible to establish a geological model of Poland leading to great discoveries of mineral deposits in the fifties. Thedecree of October 8, 1951 adjusted the organization forms of the geological survey to the system of central planning and the domination of state property, and the institute (with the name changed to the Geological Institute) became a scientific institution. During the first years the institute experienced good conditions of development, and a great progress in the knowledge of geology of Poland combined with the basic and regional studies that led to significant discoveries and documentation of mineral deposits. However, already in the seventies the first signs of crisis in geology became evident. In 1985, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Mineral Resources was established, the Central Board of Geology was disbanded, and many tasks of geological survey returned to the institute, hence this turned out to be appropriate to return to the historical name, Polish Geological Institute, which took place on June 19, 1987. Since January 1, 2012, the Polish Geological Institute has served as the Polish geological survey on the basis of the Act of June 9, 2011, and earlier, since January 1, 2002, legally specified tasks of the Polish geological survey has been assigned to the PGI. On February 24, 2009 the Council of Ministers gave the PGI a status of National Research Institute, and this implied the adding this new status to the name of the Polish Geological Institute. For the century the Polish Geological Institute has successfully fulfilled all the basic responsibilitiesand commitments that are conventionally assigned to national geological surveys, and is a model example of modern national geological survey of very wide expertise.