Author: Marcin Powęska

Polish scientists are creating world-class technologies. The problem is that they are much more often used abroad than on the Polish market. During the LASER-TECHNICA panel discussion, experts spoke plainly: Poland does not lack talent or laboratories. What it lacks is a system capable of turning good ideas into real products and large-scale orders.

International Centre for Translational Eye Research (ICTER), Institute of Physical Chemistry has been featured in the second edition of the “Horizon Europe Collaboration Opportunities with Institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences” brochure prepared by PolSCA. The publication aims to support the creation of international partnerships for Horizon Europe projects in 2026-2027.

It still works – publishing, patenting, developing technologies used across Europe. But it is increasingly clear that Polish science is operating at the limits of its capacity. Adam Kubas, Director of the Institute of Physical Chemistry PAS, says it plainly: a system that was meant to support science is now beginning to hold it back.

Drug discovery still too often relies on expensive trial and error. Researchers from ICTER show there is another way – building molecules step by step and observing their behavior at atomic resolution. This approach could significantly speed up the development of new therapies while reducing side effects.

Researchers from ICTER are among the authors of the latest volume of the Handbook of Visual Optics, edited by Prof. Pablo Artal – one of the most important contemporary references on vision technology and ophthalmic diagnostics.

Polish science does not need bigger budgets alone. It needs a better system – one that does not disperse talent, overburden people, and finally begins to treat science as a collective effort rather than a sum of individual struggles for survival.