Gdańsk University of Technology is the oldest and also the largest scientific and technical institution in the region of Pomerania. Almost 20,000 students are undergoing courses of study in that prestigious university which employs 2500 workers, including 1200 academic teachers. Data published by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education show that Gdańsk University of Technology was the technical higher school most frequently chosen by secondary school leavers in 2007 and third among all university-level schools in Poland. B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees can be achieved in nine faculties as well as undertaking post-graduate studies.
Gdańsk University of Technology Graduates have registered scientific successes and hold managerial posts in institutions the world over from Asia, through Europe, both Americas and Australia. You may remember that motor-car baby-chair of a globe-shaped shell which protects the child against injury during an accident just by turning. It was designed by Janusz Liberkowski, a graduate of Gdańsk University of Technology, and won top prize in the American Invention of 2006 programme.

Building progress
The international successes achieved by our University’s graduates give cause for much satisfaction but we constantly attempt to convince at least twenty percent of our graduates to establish their own companies based on technically advanced technologies in such fields as information technology, telecommunication, electronics, chemistry and electric engineering, where success is within easy reach.
Gdańsk University of Technology can thus be said to be participating in constructing technological progress, evidenced in the results achieved in undertaken scientific work, patents and implemented technologies in such fields as medicine and environment protection, electronics and telecommunications, automation, sound engineering and medical engineering.
Professor Janusz Rachoń, vice-chancellor of Gdańsk University of Technology, comments: “Industry and science cannot exist without one another.” That may sound like and advertising slogan but surely no one needs to be convinced of its justification. The effective implementation of new technologies is only achievable when industry is aware of the existence of a whole army of young scientists and the effects of their research efforts.
Knowledge management
Gdańsk University of Technology has been in close contact with companies for many years not only in research and implementation projects but also through a system of scholarships which curtails the distance between a graduate-to-be and his future employer.
Profesor Wiktor Sadowski, pro- vice chancellor responsible for cooperation with the economic and foreign milieu remarks: Scholarships in the form of financial grants were the dominating factor in the past but companies today recruit future workers with the use of scholarships. The presence of students in a firm has become a fact of life. A very large deficit exists of highly qualified engineers, so it should come as no surprise that scholarship founders wish to bring the most talented students into lasting contact with their company.
Professor Janusz Rachon on his part states that everyone should become aware that to come down on the side of knowledge management today is not just a matter of choice but rather of necessity. It is knowledge which is the most valuable source dictating development in 21st century economy. The most competitive on world markets today are new products in which the principal component is intellectual contribution. Companies which invest in research and make effective use of external sources of knowledge are growing at the highest pace and creating the largest added value.
Proffesor Rachoń claims, in conclusion: Not steel and coal but knowledge is the greatest achievement of the 21st century economy which is decisive for its growth. Europe is chasing the USA today in that field with Poland attempting to keep in line with Europe. We just have no other way out.