The Polish Geological Institute – National Research Institute was awarded Category 'A' because of the evaluation of its scientific activities. This brings us back to the top of the list of Polish research institutes, where we were last ranked in 2009.

The evaluation considered publication achievements, the implementation of NSC, National Centre for Research and Development (NCBiR) grants and EU projects, as well as the impact of selected projects on society and the economy. The publication criterion had the greatest weight in the algorithm calculating the scores, hence the efforts in recent years have been focused on demonstrating the achievements of the Institute's staff as effectively as possible.

The criteria of grants and impact on society have also proved to be our extraordinarily strong point and look promising for the future, provided the evaluation rules do not change significantly.

The promotion from the original B+ category is a result of the recognition of our leading role in the discipline of Earth and environmental sciences and our leading position as a supporter for the state in energy transition, raw material security, climate change adaptation and educating the public in all areas of geology. We thus maintain our well-established authority to conduct doctoral (both extramurally and as part of the Geoplanet doctoral school) and postdoctoral (habilitatus) proceedings at the Institute.

Congratulations are due to all PGI-NRI employees, without whose high scientific level and commitment to the country this success would not have been possible. The common ambition now will be to at least maintain this result during the next parametric assessment, which will take place in 2026.