OpenAI stars' mentor wants to build a "Polish MIT"

Professor Leszek Pacholski has worked with many exceptionally gifted students. In a recent interview with Polish Tech Minds, he spoke about three of them:

• Prof. Aleksander Mądry (MIT professor and one of OpenAI's principal scientists),
• Łukasz Kaiser (co-author of the groundbreaking paper "Attention Is All You Need", which serves as the foundation for modern AI and Large Language Models; laureate of the NEC C&C Prize – often referred to as the "Japanese Nobel"; widely recognized as a key figure at OpenAI),
• Michał Moskal (former long-time researcher at Microsoft Research, creator of the Nemerle programming language, now also at OpenAI).

Outside the system

All of them are graduates of the University of Wrocław, and all of them are co-creating one of the world's most vital companies and influential technologies.

They left because they saw no potential in Poland to realize critical projects, nor did they find the right teams to collaborate with.

"Brain drain isn't inherently bad. The real issue is that Polish academia remains isolated from the global circulation of talent. We should absolutely let minds like Mądry, Kaiser, or Moskal go out into the world, but we must also be capable of attracting global talent in return – not just returning Polish expats, but researchers of all nationalities and backgrounds. That is the only way to generate the vital intellectual friction, the cross-pollination of ideas and inspiration required for breakthrough science," Professor Pacholski said in the interview.

He emphasized that to retain talent in Poland, a new institution must be built completely outside the current framework.

"If we want to build a truly world-class research university in Poland, we cannot do it within the constraints of the existing higher education framework. It has to be built completely outside the current system. To attract and retain talents like Kaiser, Mądry, and Moskal, we need world-class mentors who themselves were forged in the globe's finest institutions," Pacholski added.

MINT Institute

Such a project is currently in development. Professor Pacholski's team presented the blueprint for the International Institute of Science and Technology (pol. MINT Institute) before the Parliamentary Committee on Economy and Development. If one were to capture the sheer ambition of this project, it could best be described as the "Polish MIT".

The Goals?

• Attracting the brightest minds from around the world.
• Reducing the outflow of Polish talent.
• Providing premium human capital for the Polish economy.

"Today, being the assembly plant of Europe or having nice expressways is no longer enough for us. As Poland, we need to achieve something more. And we want to do something more," said Roman Jędrkowiak, a member of Professor Pacholski’s team, during the committee session.

How would the MINT Institute differ from existing universities or research facilities?

Its primary differentiator is a strict focus on the economy. The training of PhD students and assistant professors would happen exclusively through active participation in scientific research, entirely bypassing traditional teaching duties.

Young scientists would work at the institute for a maximum of three to four years, after which they would either reinforce existing companies or launch their own startups.

MINT Institute and global benchmarks

The institute would rely on agile teams made up of international talent, established by top experts in their respective fields.

The scale of employment? 250 people after five years, growing to nearly 600 after a decade. For comparison, leading Polish universities typically employ several thousand people.

MINT would feature a relatively lean administrative structure. The number of full professors would be half that of post-docs and assistant professors, and five times less than the number of PhD students.

The entire operation would be overseen by a Board of Trustees consisting of representatives from other leading global research institutions and the business community.

The budget? 22 million PLN in the first year, scaling up to nearly 1.5 billion PLN by 2031.

"There are prominent global examples we intend to draw from: such as the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) in Vienna, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in South Korea, EPFL in Lausanne, and, of course, the legendary Stanford. We are truly capable of creating something similar," said Artur Sawicki, another member of Prof. Pacholski’s team.

Roman Jędrkowiak concluded: "Our technological sovereignty is at stake. Certain technologies and certain people are virtually impossible to buy—and even if they are, it requires immense amounts of money that, on top of everything, does not stay in Poland. We have to change that."