Origin

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Our mission
 

We are leveraging our entrepreneurial flair and expertise in the areas of sustainability, digital transformation, and ethical leadership to help our stakeholders address contemporary challenges.

The sailing ship in an open sea in our logo is a symbol of adventure, openness to new horizons, creative teamwork and leadership and limitless possibilities.

Patron

Professor Leon Koźmiński (1904-1993)  

In 1997, following a resolution of the Board of Trustees, the Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management [original Polish name: Wyższa Szkoła Przedsiębiorczości i Zarządzania] was named after Prof. Leon Koźmiński. Since 6 August 2008, upon a decision of the Minister of Science and Higher Education, our university has been called Kozminski University [original Polish name: Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego].

Professor Leon Koźmiński was born 1904 in the Ukraine. He completed his secondary education in Lausanne, Switzerland. After that, he pursued his tertiary education at the Warsaw School of Economics, graduating with a master’s degree. He presented his doctoral dissertation and obtained the degree of doktor (≈ PhD) in Paris, when he was 26. It was the year 1929. He followed up with habilitation in the 1930s. He was a docent (≈ reader) at WSE, specializing in trading methodology and organization. He also used to teach French at WSE.

In September 1939, he fought in the 21st infantry regiment as a lieutenant. He managed to avoid Russian captivity. In the times of German occupation, he taught at Miejska Szkoła Handlowa which was, in fact, an official name used by WSE to stay safe, and at the Naval Institute at the underground University of Western Lands. At the same time, he was active in the underground, acting in the “Z” unit of “the Western Lands” at the Government Delegation for Poland. As a lieutenant, he fought in the district of Mokotów in the Warsaw Uprising, as the commander of the “Baszta” Group of AK. After the defeat of the uprising, he was taken to Germany.

Starting with 1947, prof. Koźmiński was involved in co-organization of the re-opening of WSE, where he became a head of one of its departments and a dean.

 

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Prof. Koźmiński was well disposed to all ideas that could be transferred in this field from the West, made use of his contacts and literature, and at the same time supported the development of young researchers.  

It was mainly his efforts that led to the shaping of the staff of WSE’s Institute of Domestic Trade, with himself becoming the director of the institution. A part of the staff pursues the topics of regulation, marketing, and other areas of research supporting the contemporary market and businesses to the present day.

He created conditions to adapt a wide range of business instruments in those and other research areas, with those instruments becoming more practicable at the time because of the favourable circumstances, meaning e.g. an open attitude to the market progress of the end of the 20th century in our country.

Prof. Koźmiński’s contribution to the shape of entrepreneurship and his engagement in research in the scope of organization and management were very fruitful. As an industry expert, he worked as a member of a number of groups evaluating investment projects that shaped the forms of market infrastructure of the time. He supported their efforts by spreading what had been practised in the Western Europe, and by taking advantage of his and his associates’ research, contributing to the development of knowledge and science of the day in ways much ahead of their time. He was involved in many processes aimed at training and developing the skills and abilities of managerial staff, providing them with the latest European standards and practice of the time, and shaping their line of thought by promoting self-reliance, autonomy, entrepreneurship, and a customer- and market-oriented approach.

In June 2017, a ceremony was held at KU to commemorate Prof. Leon Koźmiński as a Home Army soldier and an active participant of the Warsaw Uprising.

History

The Kozminski University is based on the old Polish academic tradition, which is characterized by the principles developed as early as in the Republic of the Two Nations, introduced as part of the Enlightenment education reform from 1777 by Hugo Kołłątaj, Rector of the Jagiellonian University. These are: openness, equality, respect for ethnic and religious diversity. The school also draws on the newer traditions of the Warsaw school of commerce and business, which was the pre-war Warsaw School of Economics. 

Leon Koźmiński was its professor since 1930, during the Nazi occupation he participated in secret teaching, and after the war he took part in the reconstruction of the Warsaw School of Economics. His son Andrzej Koźmiński, born in 1941, grew up on campus, in the professor's house where his family lived. In 1949, the Warsaw School of Economics was nationalized, and in the 1950s, at a time of increasing Stalinist repression in Poland, its spirit was finally broken, scholars were hounded, and students were converted to a specific kind of education in the Stalinist spirit so that their later attitudes could benefit the ruling communist party. For almost half a century even the name of the university was changed to the Central Planning School of Planning and Statistics. Professor Leon Koźmiński has always dreamt of returning to the former Warsaw School of Economics, which educated honest merchants and reliable accountants, and at the same time was the right place to develop science. He infected his son, Andrzej, with his stories and longing for that university. When communism ended in Poland, Prof. Andrzej Koźmiński's first initiative was to create an International School of Management, educating managers, and soon afterwards a university which took over the values of the former Warsaw School of Economics and which today bears the name of his father, Prof. Leon Koźmiński.

Professor Leon Koźmiński was a European educated in Switzerland and France. He loved Poland, for which he fought and for which he worked, never having any parochial complexes. Professor Andrzej Koźmiński was guided by the same values when creating the university. Seeing Poland as an inseparable part of modern Europe, since May 1, 2004 belonging to the European Union, he created a fully European, fully international university.

At the end of the 80's, the communist system in Poland was leaning towards collapse. The biggest food price hikes in eight years in February 1988, with a minimal increase in wages, were under-heated by social sentiment. Those in power had to admit that the economic reforms to date had not been successful. 

State property dominated the country, the zloty was not convertible, and high inflation combined with the de-capitalization of production assets and technological backwardness exclusively translated into chronic market shortages. The Business Activities Act of December 28, 1988, the so-called Wilczek Act (from the name of the then Minister of Industry), opened the way for private capital to establish companies. With the changes in the economy, there was an urgent need for managerial education. At that time Prof. Andrzej Koźmiński and his colleagues from the Faculty of Management at the University of Warsaw began to make plans to set up an educational institution that would conduct managerial studies of the MBA type. In Poland nobody had done anything like that before, the idea was so innovative that even the opinion-forming weekly Polityka wrote about it.

People brought up in a centralist-bureaucratic world of planned economy think in the right categories. They cannot do otherwise... There are too many things they can't do differently. For example, they cannot use microcomputer networks. They don't know marketing, they don't know what to require and what to use consulting for, and we already have the entire consulting market. Accountants are usually guys with oversleeves, filling debit and credit positions - while a modern accountant should be a high-class diagnostician: to analyze and determine the financial condition of an enterprise.

Andrzej K. Koźmiński, „Polityka”, 1988.

 

On February 6, 1989, the Round Table, i.e. the communist government's talks with the Solidarity opposition, began, culminating in the partially free parliamentary elections held on June 4, 1989. This date is considered in Poland as a symbolic moment of transition from the communist system to democracy and free market. Three days after the elections, on June 7, 1989, an agreement to establish a company called the International School of Management (MSZZ) was signed. Among its 15 shareholders were institutions: Kasprzak Radio Station, Accountants Association in Poland, Centra-la of Horticultural and Apiculture Cooperatives, PTTK, and among private individuals, professors Andrzej Koźmiński, Stefan Kwiatkowski, Oktawian Koczuba, Andrzej Zawiślak, Józef Okolski and Robert Rządca.

The leadership of the  International School of Management was made up of people of science, not businessmen, so from the beginning they wanted the school not only to make money, but also to have scientific ambitions, if possible on a world level. In April 1990, a conference on management strategy on international markets was held, which was attended by representatives of London Business School. Subsequent international conferences concerned privatization and industrial policy.

After a year, the second track of MBA studies began and the school started additional commercial activities: short courses and trainings for government institutions and companies. The hit was the training for local government officials organized in Zakopane. Professor Stefan Kwiatkowski initiated a new area of activity, which became strategic consulting services for companies and institutions offered by the company. The political environment was also changing. The Liberal Higher Education Act of 1990, which introduced academic autonomy at state universities and enabled the creation of private universities, came into force.

The initiators of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs realized that Poland urgently needed to educate a group of professional managers, because local management will be the best guarantee for the stabilization and development of the resurgent free market economy. MBA graduates would become an economic elite, which in time would take over the helm of the Polish economy. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs initially operated in three rented office rooms at Siedmiogrodzka Street in Warsaw. The company's management board was joined by other scientists who worked closely with Prof. Koźmiński: Witold Bielecki and Krzysztof Obłój. Administrative matters were supervised by Mirosława Łukasiewicz-Kwiatkowska. It was there that Prof. Koźmiński and his closest associates completed a team of lecturers, prepared a program of 100 MBA's and started to recruit the first year of students. This involved the need to make many people aware of what MBA studies are, which were not associated with anything in Poland. One of the staff members of the large industrial team even asked: "Why is there anyone in Poland who needs this NBA (American professional basketball league)?

The year 1989 was a breakthrough in the Polish economy. Laws providing the basis for market liberalization came into force: corporate income tax, central bank and banking law. In January, the rationing of petrol and coal and car vouchers were abolished, and in August - meat cards. The price of freedom was the country's enormous debt and hyperinflation - 640% per year. The rescue was provided by the so-called Balcerowicz's plan, the Minister of Finance, prepared together with a team of foreign consultants, who advised the government formed after the June 4 elections, which came from the opposition of Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki.

In October 1989, 42 people began MBA studies at the International School of Management. 27 of them, completed. Original curriculum, which included a combination of theoretical and practical elements typical of MBA studies, taking into account the specifics of Polish transformation. Some classes were conducted in English and some in Polish. Most textbooks and teaching aids were available only in English. Among the students were directors of state companies and private craftsmen, graduates of technical and humanities studies. Classes were held in Teresin, 50 km from Warsaw. Why there? In Warsaw in the 80's there was a lack of accommodation, there were no hotels of decent standard and moderate prices, even the catering offer left a lot to be desired. Finding a center of excellence for farmers in Teresin, with a relatively good didactic and hotel base, was a brilliant move by Prof. Stefan Kwiatkowski and Oktawian Koczuba, who was responsible for logistics and finances of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Professor Krzysztof Obłój recalls that time: - The atmosphere in Teresin was unusual. During the classes we all lived there, both students and lecturers, which was conducive to intensive learning and the formation of lasting ties between the participants. In the middle of the day there were gymnastics classes, marching, playing football. We often tried to invite lecturers from abroad who sometimes slept in my small apartment in Bielany, because it was too expensive for us to put them in the hotel.

The leadership of the International School of Management was made up of people of science, not businessmen, so from the beginning they wanted the school not only to make money, but also to have scientific ambitions, if possible on a world level. In April 1990, a conference on management strategy on international markets was held, which was attended by representatives of London Business School. Subsequent international conferences concerned privatization and industrial policy.

Year later, the second track of MBA studies began and the school started additional commercial activities: short courses and trainings for government institutions and companies. The hit was the training for local government officials organized in Zakopane. Professor Stefan Kwiatkowski initiated a new area of activity, which became strategic consulting services for companies and institutions offered by the company. The political environment was also changing. The Liberal Higher Education Act of 1990, which introduced academic autonomy at state universities and enabled the creation of private universities, came into force.

The demand for managerial knowledge in a country undergoing systemic transformation turned out to be even greater than the founders of the International School of Management anticipated. However, the company had considerable limitations in the development of programs, because it did not have a didactic base - it did not have premises, equipment necessary to conduct classes, there was even a shortage of lecturers. People who conducted MBA classes at weekends worked at Warsaw University. A private company could not count on the organizational and financial support of foreign partners, which the University of Warsaw would have received, but as a state university, it could not yet charge for education.

It was not until 1991 that a chance a non-departmental International Management Center (MCZ) was established at the University, which could offer paid MBA studies. Prof. Andrzej Koźmiński became the director and Prof. Krzysztof Obłój became the manager of the MBA program, so there was a personal union between the International School of Management and the MCZ. A few years later, the Center was joined to the Faculty of Management of the University of Warsaw. Both institutions operated at the same address at 4 Nowy Świat Street and worked closely together. The university's MBA program gained foreign partners: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Erasmus University in Rotterdam and the Mellona Foundation grant. The third track of the MBA program led by the International School of Management could leave Teresin and use the MCZ lecture hall at Nowy Swiat in the center of Warsaw.

In February 1992, the first issue of the magazine "Master of Business Administration", directed by Piotr Rządca, was published. Currently, the journal is published under the title "Journal of Management and Business Administration. Central Europe" and is a highly-scoring, English-speaking scientific journal since 2018, placed in the Scopus database. After two years of operation of the International School of Management, its shareholders had to answer the strategic question whether elite post-graduate managerial education has development prospects comparable to those of general higher education addressed to high school graduates.

The answer to this question was worked out jointly by the management group of the International School of Management during an exemplarily prepared and conducted strategic session. It was moderated by Professor Andrzej Koźmiński. Using the tool taught by MBA students, the professors gave themselves a clear answer: yes, right now there is a need to establish a university! In the discussion, there were voices for and against. The International School of Management was already earning money and giving professional stability to the studio-assistant, and taking on a new challenge was associated with a high risk. The most insistent on establishing the university was prof. Oktawian Koczuba, who had the full support of prof. Andrzej Koźmiński.  

People joked that my dad, Octawian Koczuba, created this university for me because I was taking my matriculation exams at that time and getting ready for the exams for the studies - says Magdalena Koczuba-Sobieraj, PhD, who was a first-year student and currently works at KU. - That's partially true. My dad always tried to give me the best in life, he wanted me to study at a good university.

After obtaining permission from the Minister of National Education on March 31, 1993, to run the university, recruitment for the bachelor's studies in management and marketing began. On October 4, 1993, in a rented auditorium at Rozbrat Street, in the former training facility for PZPR personnel (the communist party, which until recently ruled the country, and after 1989 was quickly losing its importance), a ceremonial inauguration of the first academic year of the newly established university, then called the Leon Kozminski Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management, took place. The guest was Leslaw Paga, President of the Warsaw Stock Exchange, which was reactivated two years earlier. 

The university, with less than 300 students (124 full-time students and 130 extramural students), had big problems with the premises in its first year. Classes were conducted in rented rooms at Rozbrat Street, at Żurawia Street and at Nowy Swiat. The key issue was to find a permanent location for the university. Henryk Pisiński, for many years the chief administrator of the entire ALK campus, found a building in Warsaw's Praga district, at 59 Jagiellońska Street. The owner of the property was the collapsed ZOPAN - Zakład Opracowań i Produkcji Aparatury Naukowej at 29/31 Stalingradzka Street (the street name was changed in 1992). The takeover of the premises from the factory's liquidator was based on the principle of paying off its debts to creditors. At that time, the external economic and political conditions, which were the basis for the preparation of the PEST analysis, did not look optimistic. The year 1993 in Poland was marked by persistently high inflation, rapidly rising unemployment (3 million people did not have a job at that time), introduction of new taxes - PIT, VAT and excise taxes. The highest price of the changes is paid by the employees of hundreds of state-owned enterprises that went bankrupt, like ZOPAN, and they lost their jobs. However, despite poverty (40 percent of Poles lived below the social minimum), something exceptional happened at that time - Poles felt they were the hosts of their own country, who paid taxes, but also had demands on those in power.

In the summer of 1994, a part of the ZO-PAN premises at Jagiellońska Street was renovated for the university, so that from September onwards classes for two years of students could start there. There was still a great deal of disorder around and it was difficult to predict whether the former factory could be transform into a campus for the university. In December 1994, during the first Christmas Eve in his own office, the rector, Prof. Andrzej Koźmiński, raising a Christmas toast, told his colleagues that the best business university in Central Europe educating foreigners will be established here.

This visionary declaration caused consternation among the students, most of whom knew the best universities in the world. However, the lack of faith in the rector's words did not extinguish the enthusiasm for action, on the contrary. The whole team with consistency and extraordinary determination set about creating such a university, overcoming countless obstacles every day. The idea was to internationalise, with Professor Stefan Kwiatkowski as its natural leader. As one of the first Polish Fulbright scholarship holders, a UN scientific consultant and former UNESCO employee, he had extensive contacts all over the world. He encouraged university employees to participate in foreign conferences and organized similar events in Warsaw. Professor Stefan Kwiatkowski, on his own initiative, conducted classes for students from Business English, because not all enrolled students knew English well enough. For this reason, the Rector hired the best teachers to make language competences a positive distinction for Koźmiński graduates. The first year students constituted a rather harmonious group, which quickly integrated. In February 1994 they went to a joint sports camp organized by the university in Zakopane, and in June to an integration and sports holiday in Łeba. Such trips have become a tradition of the school. The International School of Management actively promoted their educational offer. In July 1994 a ranking of Polish universities was published, prepared by "Rzeczpospolita" and "Businessman Magazine", in which the university, described here as "Professor Koźmiński's school", was among the top five most popular universities. In the summer of 1994 intensive renovation works were carried out in the buildings at 59 Jagiellońska Street, so that already in September the first renovated hall could host the second conference of the international organization accrediting universities in the region - CEEMAN. In October 1994, 900 students inaugurated the new academic year. On November 15, 1994, the university signed a contract for the purchase of the entire ZO-PAN enterprise with the buildings at Jagiellonska Street. Thus the beginning of the future campus was established.

Professor Witold Bielecki was responsible for the computerization of the university, and his wife, Anna Bielecka, PhD, undertook to create a computerized system of student service. It was a pioneering period of computerization in the country. The hit of advanced technologies were Taiwanese PCs, which cost bayonets, so it was difficult to find them in offices, government institutions or public universities. 

The first procedures and rules of conduct for the dean's office and students were written by Anna Bielecka, PhD. There were no patterns that could be copied, and the need to regulate this area in an institution where the student is also a client was strong.

 

SOS - a student service system - was the first such system in the country. It allowed to collect and process data about credits, exam results. It contained all the information necessary for students: schedules of classes, examination cards, compositions of exercise groups, etc. It also created the possibility of transferring the reports to the Central Statistical Office. In spring 1995 this system was already operational. It underwent many changes, along with the changing technology and increasing amount of data to be processed.

recalls Anna Bielecka, PhD, vice-rector for student affairs from 1993 to 1996. The biggest problem of the young university was its premises. In the first renovated room on the second floor of building A, where the ZOPAN conference room was previously located, the recorder and the accountant worked separated from the rest of the team by a closet. There was no hall in the building, so it had to be built urgently. Building C was built on the foundations of the former electroplating shop, and a few years later building B, where the College of Law is now located. Building B is named after Prof. Oktawian Koczuba, who died suddenly in 2001 as a co-founder of the University. Initially, the school did not employ enough people to establish departments from them, but for better communication, a transitional institution of chairmen was created, who coordinated didactic processes and scientific research within their field of knowledge. The organization and management was coordinated by Włodzimierz Piotrowski, PhD, economics and finance by professor Alojzy Nowak, accounting and controlling by Teresa Kopczyńska, PhD,  marketing by professor Teresa Taranko, quantitative methods and informatics by professor Witold Bielecki, law by prof Andrzej Patulski, social sciences by Bożenna Józefowicz, PhD, and managerial workshops by prof Robert Rządca. The real departments were formed only in the third year of the university's existence and initially there were six of them. During the inauguration of the third academic year the Rector, Prof. Andrzej Koźmiński, presented the balance of the university's achievements so far: 1723 students, 24 employees, including nine professors, nine PhDs and six MSc's, 12 seminar rooms, two lecture halls, three auditoriums, four computer labs, 6 thousand volumes in the university library and one catering bar.

A breakthrough event was the granting in March 1996 of the right from the Minister of National Education to conduct master's studies in management and marketing - immediately for 25 years. This enabled the first undergraduate students to continue their studies at the same university smoothly from October 1996, and to obtain a master's degree after another two years. This, however, did not meet the ambitions of the rector and the management of the university. We want our university to become an important center of management science. We want to be a leading center! - said then Rector Koźmiński, who decided to focus on the development of scientific research and scientific exchange during seminars and conferences.

On October 25, 1996, the first critical theory of organization seminar was held as a continuation of the tradition of Professor Tadeusz Kotarbinski's famous post-war praxeological seminar in Poland. The organizers and first moderators of this event were professors Tadeusz Pszczołowski, Witold Kieżun and Wojciech Gasparski. The seminar is still held at KU, and since 2017 it has been managed by professors already educated in the Academy: Dariusz Jemielniak and Dominika Latusek-Jurczak. In 1996, on the initiative of Professor Bogdan Wawrzyniak, the first edition of cyclical conferences dedicated to current scientific research and managerial recommendations "Report on Management" took place. Many future doctors and professors who were preparing dissertations on related topics appeared at them. Professor Stefan Kwiatkowski, who has consistently strived for internationalization, initiated scientific research in cooperation with the Swedish Lund University. He has also often represented KU in international academic forums, marking with his presence the existence of a young, ambitious research unit in Central Europe. In 1996, the first 200 graduates left the university with a bachelor's degree.      

The number of students has increased significantly thanks to the launch of masters' studies. In October 1997, 1275 new students started their first year at KU. The university grew from 300 students to 2500, and could even create its own AZS Sports Club with several sections. Representatives of the students took part in sports competitions in various disciplines in the academic league. When KU left the first year of their bachelor's degree, the unemployment rate in Poland was more than 12 percent, so there was a question of how more and more of the next graduates, will cope on the labour market. With them in mind, the Rector appointed the plenipotentiary for graduate employment. His task was to establish direct contacts with employers, monitor the labor market and help graduates to find jobs. It was not until the second and third year of the year that the students' self-government was established. In cooperation with the vice-rector for student affairs, Anna Bielecka, PhD, in May 1996 the self-government organized the first School Days, which were accompanied by considerable publicity. There was a special tram in Warsaw which advertised studies at the Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management - still the name of KU at the time. Since then, every year students have had their event called "Kozminalia". 

In 1997 the university launched an international student exchange. The first foreign student, Monika Roberts, came for an exchange from Greenwich University in the United Kingdom. After the launch of her master's degree, the development of the university accelerated; it was possible to establish a five-year law degree. With this perspective, the Senate of KU entrusted Professor Wojciech Góralczyk with running the newly established Department of Law. At the same time, the Senate decided to open another course of study called finance and banking. In July 1997 the Centre for Management Studies was established as a separate scientific-research institute headed by Professor Bogdan Wawrzyniak, vice-chairman of the Committee of Organization and Management Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The focus on conducting own research became an important element of the university's strategy, which already then started to prepare for the international EQUIS accreditation. The university publishing house, managed by Marek Kamiński, which initially published scripts, increasingly often prepared books and textbooks. Scientific conferences and seminars held at KU provided interesting materials for these publications. The International School of Management, which created the university, also conducted MBA studies all the time. Two tracks of MBA students starting their studies annually could not satisfy the national demand for good managerial education. Therefore, even two strands of MBA students started their studies annually, and this did not meet the national demand for good managerial education. The university created a new MBA program, this time specialized, for engineers, conducted jointly with the Chief Technical Organization. A year-long post-graduate studies in various specialties also appeared in the offer. The University and International School of Management did not resign from consulting and training activities. In 1997, training in accounting and finance was organized for Telekomunikacja Polska and in negotiations for LOT. As time went by, KU was more and more visible on the map of Polish higher education. In June 1997, "Wprost" weekly published a list of 12 Polish universities of international class. KU was placed on the first place among non-public universities in this ranking. Professor Andrzej Koźmiński, as a leader of the community, became head of the Convention of Rectors of Non-Public Schools established by the Minister of National Education. The University and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not resign from consulting and training activities. In 1997, training in accounting and finance was organized for Telekomunikacja Polska and in negotiations for LOT. As time went by, KU was more and more visible on the map of Polish higher education. In June 1997, "Wprost" weekly published a list of 12 Polish universities of international class. The University was placed on the first place among non-public universities in this ranking. Professor Andrzej Koźmiński, as a leader of the environment, became head of the Convention of Rectors of Non-Public Schools established by the Minister of National Education. In the same year he was also invited to the elite world organization International Academy of Management, consisting of only 180 people, where he is the only Pole.

In the fifth year of its activity the student community consisted of 3500 people and the university employed 190 people on a permanent basis. The inauguration of the academic year was honored by the speeches of distinguished guests, Prof. Włodzimierz Siwiński, Rector of Warsaw University, and Prof. Kazimierz Przybysz, Deputy Minister of National Education. A few years later both professors joined the group of academics of Kozminski University. The University continued the necessary investment processes aimed at building a modern campus. 

A team of permanent employees, strongly involved in the creation of the school, expanded and consolidated around the mission outlined at the very beginning. Their common goal was to build a university that would refer to the good traditions of Polish science, organization and management, a university that was universal enough not to become a copy of a business school of the American or European type, and at the same time using the unique experience of Polish systemic transformation. The declaration of full internationalization was realized a year later, when English-speaking management studies began. The internationalization was to include not only the didactic process, but also scientific activities. In May 1998, the UNESCO-EOLSS Department of Intellectual Entrepreneurship, headed by Prof. Stefan Kwiatkowski, was established and operated as part of a worldwide network of similar institutions. In 1998, the most important event for the university was obtaining the right to confer the degree of doctor of economic sciences in the field of management science.

At the end of the millennium the first period of transformation in Poland was coming to an end. The economic situation in the country stabilized. Polish higher education was one of the sectors that was spared the transformational collapse, mainly due to the possibility of partial commercialization of education. Only full-time studies at state universities remained free of charge, and all forms of part-time education were offered with a tuition fee. Due to the high and growing demand for higher education, 200 private universities were established in the country by that time. The good economic situation of the public universities is illustrated by the impressive investments made at that time in expanding the teaching and training base. 

The University of Warsaw was equipped with a modern library building. The whole Warsaw and Poland have changed. More and more modern office buildings, hotels, housing estates were built in the capital, the first, 12-kilometre-long metro section was operating. Warsaw has become an interesting place to visit and see the effects of the successful system transformation. In June 1999, only six years after the establishment of KU, thanks to the special efforts of the rector, Prof. Andrzej Koźmiński, and the consistent efforts of Prof. Stefan Kwiatkowski, the European Foundation for Management Development granted EQUIS accreditation as the first university in Poland and the sixteenth in Europe. The EQUIS mark confirms the high quality of education, which KU could already boast about. From that moment on the University is an important participant of the European market of managerial education. No other Polish university of economics or university department received this prestigious accreditation until December 2017, when EFMD accredited the Faculty of Management at the University of Warsaw. EQUIS accreditation, granted to a very young university at that time, was a great development impulse. It allowed to introduce international standardisation of the educational process in the form of ECTS credits, to verify the program so that it was compatible with the programs of other accredited universities in the world, to expand the center of post-graduate education with flagship MBA studies and a wide range of specialized post-graduate studies, to develop scientific activities and international exchange with other universities. The University started to play in a different league, competing with 13 thousand business schools worldwide. 

By way a decision of the Presidium of the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland, we become a CRASP member institution as the only non-public higher education institution in this group.

Right to run a five-year master’s degree programme in the field of law and a master’s degree programme in the field of finance and banking. We’re awarded the IQA accreditation by the Central and East European Management Development Association (CEEMAN).

Right to run a master’s degree programme in the field of administration

Right to run a higher vocational programme in the field of sociology and the right to confer the academic degree of “doktor habilitowany nauk ekonomicznych” (≈PhD, DSc in economic sciences) in the discipline of management sciences.

The field of study of management and marketing offers a specialisation: psychology in management. The university launches doctoral studies in management.

Confirmation of unconditional EQUIS accreditation.

A ceremony of awarding Prof. Witold Kieżun with an honorary doctorate of the Leon Koźmiński Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management (the first honorary doctorate in Poland awarded by a non-public higher education institution).

Our university joins Global Compact – a United Nations programme.

The right to confer the academic degree of “doktor nauk” (≈PhD) in the discipline of economics and the right to run second-cycle (graduate-level) studies in the field of sociology. The university receives the AMBA international accreditation for MBA programmes. Change of the name of the university to Kozminski University (KU) [original Polish name: Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego; ALK].

Right to run first-cycle (undergraduate-level) and second-cycle (graduate-level) studies in the field of economics. Right to confer the degree of “doktor nauk prawnych” (≈doctor of juridical science).

KU’s field of study in management rated outstanding by the Polish Accreditation Committee.

Right to confer the degree of “doktor habilitowany” (≈PhD, DSc) in the discipline of economics. Witold Bielecki, PhD, DSc becomes the rector of the university. Prof. Andrzej K. Koźmiński, the founder of Kozminski University and its rector for many years, becomes the president of the university. The university is accredited by AACSB.

Right to confer the degree of “doktor” (≈PhD) in the discipline of finance.

Honourable mention for the Erasmus academic exchange programme in the institutional category in the EDUinspirations competition.

The University of Szczecin awards an honorary doctorate to Professor Andrzej K. Koźmiński, President of Kozminski University. Kozminski University forms a strategic alliance with ESCP Business School in Paris, one of the best business schools in the world. KU Executive MBA ranked first in the ranking of MBA programmes published by the “Wprost” weekly. Prof. Dariusz Jemielniak on the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees.

KU’s College of Law, celebrating its 15th anniversary, ranked first in “Rzeczpospolita’s” ranking of law studies on the category of non-public higher education institutions. Management student Agnieszka Kobus returns with a bronze Olympic medal from Rio de Janeiro. KU’s Academic Sports Association remains the Polish academic champion in the category of non-public higher education institutions continuously since 2009.

KU represents Poland independently in the Financial Times’ ranking of the best Executive MBA programmes, ranking 17th in Europe and 68th in the world. Prof. Andrzej Koźmiński receives an honorary doctorate from ESCP Business School.

Prof. Edward C. Prescott, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, receives an honorary doctorate from KU. KU’s doctoral school is launched.

Opening of the Bloomberg Financial Lab.

KU featured in the first edition of the Positive Impact Rating (PIR) as one of the 30 business schools in the world – and the only one from Poland. Successful digital transformation and transition to online education forced by the coronavirus pandemic. Prof. Grzegorz Mazurek becomes the rector of KU. The former rector, Prof. Witold Bielecki becomes the president of KU, and Prof. Andrzej Koźmiński – the honorary president of KU.