Institute management
director of the institute
Dr. Michał Matlak
Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Lodz and co-founder of the European Centre for Political Studies, where he focuses on strategic autonomy, sovereignty, and the European political order. He is the originator and co-founder of the European Union Security Initiative – a project that brings together EU governments, the European Commission, and academia in the debate on security and defense.
In 2021, he co-founded the Review of Democracy journal, published by the CEU Democracy Institute, which he subsequently directed as editor-in-chief. He is also co-founder and coordinator of the Enlargement Hub, which brings together the best European research institutions focused on preparing the European Union for enlargement.
For many years he held analytical and advisory roles in the European Parliament, where he dealt with science, defence and foreign policy.
He earned his PhD from the European University Institute in Florence, where he is a senior fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. He has held research fellowships at Princeton University, the University of Montreal, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, and the Hertie School in Berlin. He has participated in ERC and Horizon projects, gaining experience working with prestigious research grants.
He has also published in Le Monde, The New York Review of Books, Esprit, Rzeczpospolita, and Gazeta Wyborcza, among others.
Tasks of the Institute Council:
1) determining the prospective directions of the Network Institute’s research and implementation activities;
2) adopting the Network Institute’s statute;
3) issuing opinions on:
a) the Network Institute’s organizational regulations;
b) the Network Institute’s annual activity plans;
c) the Network Institute’s annual activity reports;
d) the proposed distribution of the Network Institute’s net profit;
4) expressing opinions on matters concerning the Network Institute’s activities, as presented by the Director or the Łukasiewicz Center bodies.
The tasks are regulated in detail in the Act on the Łukasiewicz Research Network
The Center for Technology Assessment (CTA) conducts interdisciplinary analyses and studies of the impact of new and existing technologies on society, the economy, and the environment. The Center’s activities are aimed at supporting rational decision-making in the development of new technologies, innovation policy, and the implementation of technological solutions at the regional and national levels.
Key areas of development at the CTA include:
– Comprehensive Technology Assessment – conducting systematic analyses of technologies in the context of their innovation and implementation potential, taking into account legal (patent evaluation) and environmental aspects. Preparing reports assessing the potential, risks, and consequences of the development and implementation of new technologies. Adapting best practices and technology assessment methods used worldwide to national realities.
– Support for decision-makers and public institutions – providing reliable and evidence-based analyses for public administration, government agencies, local governments and institutions responsible for science and technology policy;
– Trend analysis, technological and environmental foresight in the field of Circular Economy (CE) and ESG (i.e. Environmental – environment, Social Responsibility – social responsibility and Corporate Governance);
– Assessment of the effectiveness and justification of investments in R&D projects from the point of view of social and economic value and increasing the level of innovation in the economy;
– Supporting dialogue between scientists, entrepreneurs, citizens and politicians;
– International cooperation – participation in international research projects, support for Polish research units and entrepreneurs in effectively applying for funds from the Horizon Europe programme thanks to the coordination of the work of the Industry Contact Points operating in the Łukasiewicz Research Network.
It carries out research and projects in the field of analysis, monitoring and evaluation:
- public policies that foster economic innovation and support social development (scientific, economic, innovation, social, local government, legislative policy),
- innovation of enterprises and business environment institutions (BSIs),
- solutions for internal and external security.
In the field of process innovation and social research, the Institute monitors the social consequences of implementing digital technologies, including AI, with a focus on their acceptance, ethics, and impact on mental health and social functioning. Within ongoing projects, methods based on finetuning and RAG/Graph-RAG are being developed, utilizing datasets generated by the scientific and business communities, particularly scientific publications, patent applications, and procedural documentation. The Center is working on methods for processing specialized texts, focusing on issues such as categorization, information extraction, and trend analysis. The use of these new IT tools complements social research, strengthening the conclusions drawn from quantitative and qualitative analyses conducted at the Institute.
The activities of the Center for Process and Social Innovation include, in particular:
1) conducting research and projects in the areas of:
a) process, organizational, and social innovation,
b) social responsibility of science,
c) health care,
d) energy transition,
e) education,
f) digitalization;
2) conducting research within the scope of the Łukasiewicz Research Network and research in the field of responsible technological development.
