The International Stefan Banach Prize for a Doctoral Dissertation in the Mathematical Sciences was established in 2008 by the Polish Mathematical Society and Ericpol Telecom – an IT company based in Łódź, who financed the prize and the competition itself. The idea came from the President of the Polish Mathematical Society, Stefan Jackowski, and Vice-President, Paweł Walczak – member of the Łódź branch.

The Prize was awarded annually from 2009 until 2017, with the competition open to young mathematicians from Belarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, and Ukraine. Over nine years the competition had six winners from Poland, and one each from Hungary, Denmark and Finland. The list of winners is available here. In 2016 Ericpol became part of the Swedish Ericsson Group, which withdrew from organizing the competition after 2017, leading to the event being suspended.

CURRENT EDITIONS

On the centenary of Stefan Banach receiving his doctoral degree, we would like to reactivate this competition. The goals, as before, are to promote mathematics and provide financial supports to the most talented young researches from Central and Eastern Europe. The historical and political circumstances of these countries following World War 2 have made starting out on the research path a much more difficult task than in Western Europe.

We would like to thank the PwC company, who is the Chief Sponsor of the Competition. We would also like to thank the Strategic Sponsor: the University Center of Excellence at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, as well as the Intercollegiate Consortium composed of Departments of Mathematics at nine of the largest universities in Poland. The Consortium, as a whole, is the largest of the sponsors.

Submissions can be sent to the Polish Mathematical Society until May 15, 2022.

Winners will be announced no later than July 31, 2022.