Lena Kolarska-Bobińska

Professor Lena Barbara Kolarska-Bobińska (born 3 December 1947 in Prague) is a Polish sociologist, academic and political figure. Most recently, she served as the Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education from 2013 to 2015. In order to take the appointment, she resigned as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), where she represented the Lublin region from the Civic Platform Party list from 2009.

Lena Kolarska-Bobińska
Minister of Science and Higher Education
In office 3 December 2013 – 16 November 2015
Prime Minister	Donald Tusk Ewa Kopacz
Preceded by	Barbara Kudrycka
Succeeded by	Jarosław Gowin
Personal details
Born	(1947-12-03) 3 December 1947 Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic)
Political party	Civic Platform
Alma mater	University of Warsaw Polish Academy of Sciences

She is a graduate of the Sociology Department of the University of Warsaw, as well as a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University and the Business School of Carnegie Mellon University. She also holds a Doctorate (dr. hab.)(1974) and the title of Professor from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), where she was head of the Department of Economics and Politics until 1991. From 1991 to 1997 she was director of CBOS, Poland's largest public opinion research centre. From 1997 until July 2009, she has been the director of the Institute of Public Affairs, Poland, an independent, non-partisan public policy think tank, stepping down upon her election to the European Parliament.

Kolarska-Bobińska has written over 300 books and articles. She has been a lecturer at universities in Poland and abroad. She often comments on political and social developments for Polish and international media. She is a regular columnist for the Polish newspaper "Gazeta Wyborcza" and was until 2009, a regular columnist for the French journal Les Échos.

Kolarska-Bobińska is a member of many Polish and international associations and advisory boards. She was a member of the Economic Council of President Lech Wałęsa (1992–1995), adviser of the Chief Negotiator for Poland's accession to the EU (1998–2001), and a member of President Aleksander Kwaśniewski's Reflection Group (2001–2005). Lena Kolarska-Bobinskla endorses the idea of a Federal Europe by signing the manifesto of the Spinelli Group.

She is married to Krzysztof Bobiński who is the president of Unia & Polska, a pro-European think-tank in Warsaw and former Warsaw correspondent of the Financial Times (1976–2000). They have two children. She is fluent in Polish, English and Spanish.