Short portrait

Research profile

The W. Szafer Institute of Botany of the Polish Academy of Sciences represents the field of natural sciences and discipline of biological sciences. The Institute currently conducts research in the following areas:

• plant biology;
• biodiversity, molecular biogeography and systematics;
• evolution and organismal interactions;
• functional and evolutionary ecology;
• palaeobotany and palaeoenvironment.

Overview

The W. Szafer Institute of Botany of the Polish Academy of Sciences has been awarded the scientific category B+ in the discipline of biological sciences.

Over more than 70 years of its history, the W. Szafer Institute of Botany of the Polish Academy of Sciences has gained wide recognition among Polish scientific institutions engaged in research work in the classical botanical disciplines. Currently, with its staff of 45 researchers, the Institute is a modern institution, conducting interdisciplinary studies of vascular plants, bryophytes, algae, fungi (including lichens) and protista, in cooperation with foreign partners. Our researchers are strongly interested in ecological phenomena occurring at different levels of organization, from molecular level, through organismal, population and ecosystem levels, to global level. The Institute is an important centre of research on biodiversity and its changes over the past ca. 250 million years, registered in palaeobotanical records, and identification of natural and/or anthropogenic drivers of these changes. One of the strategic goals of the Institute is documenting the taxonomic diversity of modern and fossil floras and mycobiota of the world; this goal is pursued through among others participation in multidimensional studies on the world's biota (in Europe, the two Americas, Asia, Africa, Arctic and Antarctica) and building up the largest national botanical collections. The IB PAS activities combine the tradition of assembling and elaborating botanical collections with current research trends, developing studies based on molecular techniques, e.g. studies within the scope of museum genomics, ecophysiology and ecochemistry. Studies are carried out using modern research tools, such as next-generation sequencing, sequencing of peptide by LC-MS/MS and sequencing of transcriptome, quantitative analysis of peptide content in plant extracts and tissues using MALDI-MSI and labelling peptides with nitrogen isotope ¹⁵N, high-efficient liquid chromatography in studies on cyanide and algal toxins, as well as remote sensing.

In 2025 alone, our researchers published more than 90 scientific papers in internationally renowned journals (Q1 – 40% of articles; Q2 – 20% of articles) and 16 chapters in monographs (see: Publications). These publications addressed, among others, topics in the fields of: systematics and phylogeny of various groups of organisms (e.g. resinicolous fungi from the class Dothideomycetes, sooty mould fungi, lichenicolous fungi of the order Hypocreales, and lecanoroid lichens of the genera Flavonora and Pulvinora); chorology and ecology of species from the Oenothera biennis complex; ecology (e.g. the consequences of mast years in Sorbus aucuparia for pollinator assemblage composition and pollination efficiency, and the effects of mowing frequency on vegetation and soil properties of urban lawns); plant physiology (e.g. responses of Mesembryanthemum crystallinum to abiotic stress and the effects of fagopyrin on female gametophyte development and yield in Fagopyrum); and palaeoecology (e.g. vegetation changes at the eastern margins of the North Sea during the Early Oligocene, fossil endophytic fungi in the Cenozoic of Poland, and the impact of long-term activity of former agricultural communities on the vegetation of the Miechów Upland).

The Institute is authorised to confer the academic degrees of Doctor (PhD) and Habilitated Doctor (DSc) in the field of exact and natural sciences, within the discipline of biological sciences. For more than 25 years, it provided doctoral education as an organisational unit of the Doctoral Studies in Natural Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences (2000–2024). Since 2019, it has served as the coordinating institution of the Doctoral School of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. The School is currently co-organised together with three other institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences (the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals PAS, the Institute of Nature Conservation PAS, and the Franciszek Górski Institute of Plant Physiology PAS), as well as the National Research Institute of Animal Production.

The Institute hosts and develops the largest scientific botanical and mycological collection in Poland, comprising more than 1.6 million inventoried items. Owing to its unique documentary value, the broad diversity of both recent and fossil specimens, and the growing scientific potential of these resources as subjects of research employing genetic, isotope, and radiocarbon techniques, the collection – under the name National Biodiversity Collection of Recent and Fossil Organisms at W. Szafer Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences (NBC IB PAS) – was included in 2020, by decision of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, among the strategic research infrastructures listed on the Polish Roadmap for Research Infrastructure (PRRI). Following a positive evaluation of the management and accessibility of the NBC IB PAS infrastructure, the collection retained its position on the PRRI by decision of the Minister of 7 November 2025, remaining among the fourteen strategic infrastructures representing the biological, medical, and agricultural sciences. An important milestone for the Institute was the launch of the digitisation of its collections and the provision of open online access to these resources. To this end, the Institute became a member of two consortia established to implement the following projects: Open Resources in Digital Repository of Scientific Institutes (OZwRCIN), within which selected collections were made available through the online platform Digital Repository of Scientific Institutes (RCIN), and Integration and mobilization of data on the biotic diversity of Eukaryota in resources of Polish scientific institutions (IMBIO). Both consortia bring together more than a dozen scientific institutions, including institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences and universities. The Institute also actively participated in the Digital Catalog of Poland’s Biodiversity (CKBP) project coordinated by the University of Warsaw.

The Institute maintains one of the largest botanical libraries in Poland, comprising approximately 114,500 volumes. It is also home to the IB PAS Publishing House, which publishes scientific works in various fields of botany, including numerous monographs. The Institute publishes two internationally recognised botanical journals – Acta Palaeobotanica and Plant and Fungal Systematics – as well as one national journal, Fragmenta Floristica et Geobotanica Polonica.

The HR Excellence in Research award granted to IB PAS in 2017 confirms the Institute’s commitment to creating a supportive working environment and conducting research in accordance with international professional standards.

Our beginnings

On the initiative of Władysław Szafer, an eminent scientist and professor of the Jagiellonian University, the Scientific Secretariat of the Polish Academy of Sciences, by resolution of October 5, 1953, designated the Department of Botany as an independent all-Polish scientific-research unit with a seat in Kraków. The Department was reorganized into the Institute of Botany by a resolution passed by the Presidium of the Government of the Polish People’s Republic on March 5, 1956, and it was given the name of W. Szafer by resolution of the Scientific Secretariat of PAS of June 10, 1986.

The Institute originated from the centre of botanical studies developed for over 100 years at the Physiographic Commission of the Polish Academy of Learning. Its scientific base was the Department of the Plant Systematics and Geography of the Jagiellonian University; the Department's researchers composed the first staff of the Institute. The first Director of the Institute, professor Władysław Szafer (1953–1960) and its Deputy Director and next Director, professor Bogumił Pawłowski (1961–1968) simultaneously held executive positions at the Department, which reflects strong ties between the Institute and the Jagiellonian University. Professor W. Szafer planned to set up an important research centre for studies in plant systematics, plant geography and palaeobotany, in Kraków. For many years these were the main areas of the Institute's scientific activity. Initially, the Department of Botany PAS was composed of three laboratories: Laboratory of Polish Flora (vascular plants), Laboratory of Bryology and Laboratory of Paleobotany but as early as 1954, new laboratories were created. They included Atlas of Polish Flora (in Wrocław), Algology, Variability and Historical Evolution, and next Mycology and Lichenology laboratories.