Computer science has been systematically developed at the Warsaw University since the 1960s. At the early stage, the emerging branch of research received encouragement from the great mathematicians, the successors of the Polish mathematical school: Kazimierz Kuratowski, Stanislaw Mazur, Hugo Steinhaus, and Helena Rasiowa. Mathematics, and especially mathematical logic, always had a strong influence on the research carried on at the university. Throughout the years, several particular achievements of the Warsaw scientists have been broadly recognized by the international community—for example: the external language KLIPA by W. M. Turski (1960s), the algorithmic logic and the object-oriented programming language LogLan by A. Salwicki (1970s), the work of J. Tiuryn and his followers on logic in computer science, the Parnas-Madey Four Variable Model (by J. Madey and D. Parnas), and more recently the specification system CASL (co-developed by A. Tarlecki), and the work on pattern matching and radio-network algorithms by W. Rytter and his group. Three decades of efforts of academic teachers have contributed to the formation of a versatile group of researchers of a considerable critical mass.

“Computer science has been systematically developed at the Warsaw University since the 1960s.”

Meanwhile the interest in computers in the Polish society has been systematically growing, and speeded up dramatically after the political and economical changes in 1990. Many mathematically talented young people have chosen computer science as their professional career, and a number of them have become active researchers at the university (as Ph.D. students or members of the faculty).

Today, active research is carried on in almost all disciplines of computer science, for instance (according to the AMS Subject Classification): 68Mxx Computer system organization (in particular 68M10 Network design and communication and 68M20 Performance evaluation; queuing; scheduling), 68Nxx Software (especially 68N30 Mathematical aspects of software engineering; specification, verification, metrics, requirements, etc.), 68Pxx Theory of data, 68Qxx Theory of computing (in particular 68Q10 Modes of computation: nondeterministic, parallel, interactive, probabilistic, etc., 68Q17 Computational difficulty of problems, 68Q60 Specification and verification: program logics, model checking, etc., 68Q65 Abstract data types; algebraic specification), 68Rxx Discrete mathematics in relation to computer science (especially 68R10 Graph theory, and 68R15 Combinatorics on words), 68Txx Artificial intelligence, 68Uxx Computing methodologies and applications (in particular 68U05 Computer graphics; computational geometry, and 68U35 Information systems: hypertext navigation, interfaces, decision support, etc.), 68Wxx Algorithms (in particular 68W05 Nonnumerical algorithms, 68W15 Distributed algorithms, and 68W20 Randomized algorithms). The research also touches related areas, in particular 03B35 Mechanization of proofs and logical operations, 03B70 Logic in computer science, 03D05 Automata and formal grammars in connection with logical questions, 91Axx Game theory, 92Bxx Mathematical biology, and 94A60 Cryptography.

A deliberate effort of the community aims to develop the research in all mainstream areas of Computer Science. This goal is not yet completely achieved; there is some world-class research in some branches (e.g., combinatorics on words, logic in computer science, algorithms), but some important areas remain to be better developed (e.g., databases, networks). However, the current interests of Ph.D. students embrace new disciplines, and one can expect that in few years the Warsaw University group will achieve high levels in further areas.