POLFAR and LOFAR-ERIC

The decision by Polish research teams to become involved in the development of the LOFAR system was a natural consequence of the international cooperation developed by Poland’s radio astronomy community since the 1980s, including within the European and global VLBI interferometry networks. The declared intention to build 3 LOFAR stations in Poland meant that Polish scientists played an important role in the development and consolidation of the system from the outset.

National cooperation to support Poland’s participation in LOFAR formally began in 2007 with the establishment of the POLFAR consortium, which currently comprises 12 institutions:

• University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn (coordinator), owner of the PL-612 station in Bałdy,
• Jagiellonian University in Kraków, owner of the PL-611 station in Łazy,
• Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, owner of the PL-610 station in Borówiec,
• Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (affiliated with the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences),
• University of Zielona Góra,
• Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń,
• Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw,
• Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences,
• University of Szczecin,
• National Centre for Nuclear Research, Świerk, Warsaw
• University of Wrocław,
• Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań

The consortium’s first chair, from 2007 to 2020, was prof. dr hab. Katarzyna Otmianowska-Mazur (UJ, Kraków). The role is currently held by prof. dr hab. Andrzej Krankowski (UWM in Olsztyn).

In 2010, the consortium successfully applied for LOFAR to be included in the first Polish Roadmap for Research Infrastructures, a key instrument of national science policy used for the long-term planning and management of strategic research infrastructure development in Poland, with Polish research teams participating in the most important European and international initiatives of this kind. In 2015 (decision No. 7/176/6/2015), 2020 (decision No. DIR/PMIB/2020) and 2026 (announcement by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW) dated 4 August 2026), MNiSW again included POLFAR’s activities in the Polish Roadmap for Research Infrastructures (PMIB).

This played an important role in the consortium’s receipt of funding from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in 2013 for the construction of 3 Polish LOFAR stations under the funding stream for large research infrastructure (decision No. 6339/IA/158/2013.1). The funding enabled the consortium to commission the construction of stations in Bałdy (near Olsztyn), Borówiec (near Poznań) and Łazy (near Kraków), managed respectively by UWM in Olsztyn, CBK PAN in Warsaw and UJ in Kraków. It also enabled the Polish stations to be connected to the LOFAR IT network using the infrastructure of the national PIONIER fibre-optic network.

At the beginning of 2016, the Polish stations became operational components of the LOFAR system and began radio astronomical observations and space monitoring within LOFAR’s Key Science Projects, becoming part of the International LOFAR Telescope (ILT).

On 20 December 2023, under Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/2881, the Polish LOFAR stations and the POLFAR consortium became part of the Low Frequency Array European Research Infrastructure Consortium (LOFAR ERIC).

In 2016–2026, Poland’s participation in the consortium was funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education through the project ‘Participation of the POLFAR consortium and the POLFARO working group in the European ILT structure’ (decision No. DIR/WK/2016/05 and agreement No. 2021/WK/02).

In 2023–2026, POLFAR carried out the first mandatory modernization of all Polish LOFAR stations (LOFAR 2.0). The modernization was undertaken through the project ‘Participation of the POLFAR consortium and the POLFARO working group in the European ILT structure for 2021–2026’, funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (agreement No. 2021/WK/02).

With its anticipated sensitivity and angular resolution, LOFAR 2.0, together with the European LOFAR-ERIC consortium established on 20 December 2023, now provides research infrastructure complementary to the SKA project on the ESFRI Roadmap, which is being developed in the Southern Hemisphere, in Australia and South Africa.

Furthermore, over the next decade LOFAR will remain the world’s most powerful instrument for radio astronomy at extremely low frequencies (the LBA band), as SKA will not achieve such high angular resolution at low frequencies. This capability is provided by LOFAR’s international stations, including the 3 Polish stations.