The University of Warmia and Mazury (UWM) was founded on 1 September 1999, after merging three educational institutions: the fifty-year-old Academy of Agriculture and Technology, the thirty-year-old Pedagogy College and the 450-year-old Warmian Theological Institute. The university employs about 3300 people of which 2000 are teachers including 230 professors and 280 habilitated doctors.
Its sixteen faculties educate over 34,000 students: 24,000 daytime, 10,000 weekend, 350 doctoral and 4000 post-graduate. We provide our students with the opportunity to attain a comprehensive education in a wide range of studies: humanities, pedagogy, theology, fine arts, law, veterinary medicine, agriculture, engineering, biology, economics, mathematics and, since the academic year of 2008/2009, medicine. Students have a choice of 49 academic majors and three interdisciplinary studies. Later on they may pursue doctoral studies in fifteen academic fields as well as 130 forms of post-graduate studies. In 2008, 6500 day-time students and 2900 weekend students graduated from the university.
UWM is subject to evaluation for its curricula and quality of education by the State Accreditation Committee as well as institutional and specialized accreditation committees.
European Association of Establishments of Veterinary Education (EAEVE) declared that the university's faculty of Veterinary medicine meets European education standards. Out of 120 faculties of veterinary medicine in Europe, only thirty-eight, including the one at UWM, have received a positive evaluation from EAEVE.
The university is an autonomous institution. Eleven of the sixteen faculties have full academic rights to confer doctoral and postdoctoral degrees in twelve fields, and fourteen faculties can confer doctoral degrees in twenty fields.
The Minister of Science and Higher Education approved the university's categorization of scientific units. The first category according to the parametric evaluation of the Committee on Research for the Development of Science includes the faculties of Food Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, Environmental Design and Agriculture, Environmental Protection and Fisheries, Animal Bioengineering, Humanities and Theology. The second category includes the faculties of Biology, Geodesy and Land Management, Mathematics and Computer Science, Social Sciences and Medicine. The third category includes the faculties of Economics as well as Law and Administration. The Faculty of Technical Sciences was qualified as the fourth category.
UWM does not only offer quality education but is also a dynamic centre of culture and sports. There are many cultural organizations at the university including its choir, the Kortowo Folklore Song and Dance Troupe, the Cezar Student Theatre Group, the Skorpen Academic Scuba-Diving Club and the Jamnik Student Photography Club. University students' sporting achievements are also worth noticing. Our male volleyball team AZS UWM Olsztyn has won numerous times the Polish championship or been in either second or third place. Our students have also occupied the highest positions in other disciplines such as teakwondo, sailing and athletics.
The majority of the academic buildings and student residence buildings are located on the Kortowo campus, one of the most beautiful in Poland. A district of Olsztyn, it is administered by the ŻAK UWM Foundation.