The Adam Mickiewicz Institute is a government cultural institution which aims to popularise Polish culture around the world and cooperate on cultural projects with other countries.

History
The Institute (initially called the Centre for International Cultural Cooperation - Adam Mickiewicz Institute, or IAM) was founded on 1 March 2000 on the basis of a directive issued by the then Minister of Culture and Art, preceded by an agreement (in 1999) between Culture and Art Minister Andrzej Zakrzewski and Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek. At the time, the ministers signed a letter of intent which set down the scope of their ministries' cooperation on promoting culture. The Institute received its first statute on the day of its inception. The first director of the IAM was Damian Kalbarczyk.

From May 2005 to March 2006, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute formed a part of the new Adam Mickiewicz Institute which was the result of amalgamating the Centre for International Cultural Cooperation - Adam Mickiewicz Institute with the National Centre for Culture (NCK).

Based on directive No. 7 of Culture and National Heritage Minister Kazimierz Michal Ujazdowski on the division of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, dated 14 March 2006, as of 15 March 2006 the IAM has been a separate institution once again, registered in the Cultural Institutions Register (RIK) as the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, entry number 70/2006. The current IAM statute was granted by Culture and National Heritage Minister Kazimierz Michal Ujazdowski in directive No. 9 of 15 March 2006.


The Adam Mickiewicz Institute
Photo: Szymon Roginski


Activity
The goal of the Institute's activity is to promote Poland abroad by popularising the historical and contemporary achievements of Polish culture, in accordance with the fundamental guidelines of Poland's foreign policy and cultural policy.

The Adam Mickiewicz Institute's regular activities include, in particular:

• developing and updating an integrated system of information on Polish culture, and disseminating that information - in Polish and foreign languages - in the WWW global network,
• creating and collecting various kinds of information and promotional materials (multilingual publications, illustrations, recordings, films, literary programmes, exhibition projects, etc.) as well as making them available to interested persons and organizations, particularly Polish Institutes and Polish cultural institutions abroad,
• providing foreign popularisers of culture, researchers, and specialists from various fields with all required materials and information on Polish culture - books, periodicals, recordings, music scores, exhibition catalogues, sets of films (the "Closer to Poland" programme),
• organizing study visits for foreign guests of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, the Ministry of Culture, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Partners
Important partners for the Institute in creating a cohesive image of Poland and Polish cultural identity include individual scholars and popularisers of Polish history and culture - historians, literary scholars, translators of literature, art curators, organizers of music, theatre and film projects, journalists.

The Institute works together with Polish and foreign cultural institutions, Ministry of Foreign Affairs posts in other countries, university-level Polish Studies centres as well as institutions and organizations that popularise Poland's history and culture, and also associations of Poles and expatriate Poles abroad.

At the same time - as directed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, in association with Polish cultural institutions in Poland and abroad as well as foreign partners, carries out large promotional projects stemming from the obligations of international contracts and other agreements related to the promotion of Polish culture.

Projects
In 2001-2007, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute carried out promotional projects in 25 countries, including Russia, the Benelux, Spain, Austria, Sweden, France, Germany, Ukraine, Lithuania as well as Algeria, Marocco, India and China; some of these projects are being and will be continued in future. The Polish Year in Israel 2008/2009 is under way, and The Polish Year in the UK 2009/2010 is in preparation.

In projects completed to date, the IAM presented more than 2,500 cultural events, watched by 14 million people. Information about these projects was published in more than 500 European and world-wide publications and electronic media. The websites run by the IAM are visited by users from more than 120 countries around the world. The total number of site visits to www.culture.pl since the inception of this web portal has exceeded 10 million, and the total number of site hits - 20 million.

Cooperation
Information on the possibilities and principles of cooperation, and on how to contact the IAM, is available from the sections "Cooperation with the IAM" and "CONTACT", respectively.

STATUT
Structure