Poland was chosen to host the International URSI Congress in 2026 in Kraków!

The Congress of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) is held every 3 years in various cities around the world and every time gathers over 1,200 participants. At this year's hybrid congress in Rome, Poland was granted the right to host the event in 2026. The congress will be held on 15-22 August 2026 at the ICE Kraków Congress Centre.

URSI is a non-profit scientific organisation set up to initiate and coordinate studies, as well as research and scientific exchange in the field of radio science on a global scale. Radio science is a field of knowledge and research covering all issues related to electromagnetic fields and waves. URSI is a member of the International Council for Science (ICSU).

The Polish National Committee of URSI made efforts to host the event in Poland for the first time in 2016 and proposed Warsaw as the host city for the congress. After submitting the bid, the Polish capital was qualified for the finals, together with the cities of Rome, Sapporo and Singapore, and the Local Organising Committee (LOC) was invited to present their proposition at the URSI congress in Montreal in 2017. At that congress in Canada, Poland was represented by a very strong team. The presentation was attended by Professor Józef Modelski, President of the Polish National Committee of URSI and Ambassador of Polish Congresses since 2017, Mateusz Czerwiński from the Warsaw Convention Bureau and Anna Górska, who represents the PCO. Warsaw lost to Rome, with one of the reasons being that Rome submitted the bid for hosting the congress for the third time in a row. Due to the pandemic, the congress in Rome was postponed to 2021 and was held in a hybrid formula between 28 August - 4 September 4.

At the beginning of 2020, the Polish National Committee decided to submit Poland's bid again, but this time decided to put forward the candidacy of Kraków. The reason for changing the city was mainly the fact that an event related to a similar field of science, namely the EuCAP European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, was successfully held in 2019 at ICE Kraków, and many people from URSI participated in this event. This time, only the Polish bid met the URSI criteria for hosting the event, and LOC was invited to present their proposition at the congress in Rome. The presentation was recorded and shown at the General Meeting of URSI Members and was met with a very positive response. Anna Górska, who represented Symposium Cracovience and participated in the online meeting, said that Kraków was selected unanimously, because the city's very good location and infrastructure were emphasised, including ICE Kraków, which fully meets the URSI requirements in terms of the availability of conference rooms, as well as hotels and their affordable prices.

The organiser of the URSI congress in Kraków will be Symposium Cracoviense. The company is a member of the International Congress and Convention Association, the Conferences and Congresses in Poland Association and the Warsaw Tourism Organisation. The company is also recommended by the Kraków Convention Bureau and the Polish Tourist Organisation. This is another success of Symposium Cracoviense in recent years in winning hosting rights for prestigious events in our country. In June of this year, the company won the rights to co-host the international FIG 2022 congress in Poland, acting as Destination Management Company (DMC). Poland's offer for the URSI 2026 congress in Kraków is supported by the President of the Polish Tourism Organisation and the Mayor of the City of Kraków.

Author: Anna Górska