The Institute of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences was established in 1956 as the Research Centre of Geological Sciences in Warsaw. The Laboratory of Geology and Stratigraphy of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow, which was organized in 1954 on the basis of the geological collection and library of the geological division of the Physiographic Commission of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, was incorporated into the Research Centre as its branch in Cracow. Professors Jan Samsonowicz, Roman Kozłowski and Stefan Zbigniew Różycki initiated the establishment of the Research Centre of Geological Sciences in the Polish Academy of Sciences. Professor Jan Samsonowicz was the first director of the Research Centre. In 1979, a resolution of the Board of the Polish Academy of Sciences raised the Centre to the rank of Institute.
Since 1956 the members of the research staff of the Institute have published over 2500 papers, including many monographs and syntheses, issued in the foreign and Polish scientific journals. Some of research findings have practical applications, including characterization of hydrochemical parameters of the subsurface waters in the Polish lowlands, studies on geothermal water resources in the Sudetes, recognition of the origin of the copper ores in the light of sedimentological analysis, expert evaluations done for the Polish Jura Chain Landscape Parks, various research studies and consulting jobs for the oil industry, and also sedimentological and mineralogical analyses of the Carpathian Foredeep deposits.
The following research activities carried out over the past decades may be mentioned here, as a part of geological investigations conducted in the Institute: