Poland in the UK

Ambassador Piotr Wilczek was born in Chorzów, Poland on 26 April 1962. He received his MA, PhD and Habilitation (postdoctoral) degrees from the University of Silesia in Katowice and conducted his postgraduate research/training at the University of Oxford (St Anne’s College), University of East Anglia (The British Centre for Literary Translation) and the University of London (The Warburg Institute). In 2006, he was awarded the title of Professor of Humanities by the President of the Republic of Poland.

Between 2016 and 2021, as Poland’s Ambassador to the United States of America, Ambassador Wilczek was extensively involved in promoting and strengthening transatlantic relations, especially in the areas of defence, energy and trade. In 2020, he received the Amicus Oeconomiae award from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland for his achievements in supporting and protecting the economic interests of Polish enterprises in foreign markets. On 22 December 2021, he was appointed Poland’s Ambassador to the Court of St James’s and began his mission in London on 15 February 2022.

Before joining the foreign service, Ambassador Wilczek taught at the University of Warsaw as a tenured professor. From 2009 to 2016, he served as the Director of the University's Collegium Artes Liberales, an innovative college of liberal arts and sciences. From 2002 to 2008, he was the Dean of the Faculty of Philology at the University of Silesia in Katowice.

Ambassador Wilczek has been a coordinator and expert in numerous international research projects, a visiting professor and guest speaker at leading European and American universities (including Oxford, Zurich, Bologna, Harvard, Boston College, Rice University and the University of Chicago) and a panellist at prestigious conferences, including the Aspen Security Forum, the US STRATCOM Deterrence Symposium and the Wrocław Global Forum. He has held numerous managerial positions in state, local government, non-governmental and academic institutions and organised over a dozen international conferences. He is also an editor and author of numerous books and articles. In 2017, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Cleveland State University. Over the last 25 years, he has been actively establishing and developing international contacts between various institutions and promoting international cultural and economic cooperation.