Fundacja Industrial (Industrial Foundation) is a think tank, set up in 2007 in Poland by a group of young liberals from the city of Łódź to promote liberal values, European integration, civic activities and to help the development of our city. The focus of all our activities is publishing expert, ideological social-political magazine Liberté!. Liberté!’s mission is to promote an open society, liberal economic ideas and liberal culture and to organize a social movement around these ideas. At the same time we are also involved in a wide range of expert activities in the fields of our interest. Our Foundation is the member of European Liberal Forum and 4liberty.eu network.
Among Foundation’s partners you may find: The Stefan Batory Foundation, The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, National Center of Culture, Confederation Lewiatan, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, City of Lodz, Microsoft or Google. We are also the partner of the biggest public events in Poland concerning business and politics, such as Economic Forum in Krynica, Wrocław Global Forum or the European Forum of New Ideas.
Main projects:
1. Liberté!
We started by publishing an on-line webportal (www.liberte.pl) in 2008. Later on, also printed issues of magazine were released. Liberté! becomes a recognizable brand in Polish media, its authors print their articles in Gazeta Wyborcza, Polska The Times, Wprost, Przekrój and Newsweek among others and are often invited to comment and analyze the current political events (eg. in Polish tv stations: TVP 2, TVP3, Polsat News as well as on the radio: Tok Fm). We have become influential power on Polish market of ideas. Liberté!’s patrons council includes among others professor Marek Safjan (Judge at the Court of Justice of the European Communities), Jerzy Pomianowski, Janusz Lewandowski (Member of European Commission), professor Zbigniew Pełczyński, professor Wojciech Sadurski, professor Jan Winiecki, Henryka Bochniarz, professor Paweł Śpiewak, professor Ireneusz Krzemiński and many other distinguished individuals from the Polish public life. Our magazine is directed at the public opinion’s leaders, NGO representatives, academic world, politicians, media, entrepreneurs and young people involved in building civil society in the country. More information concerning Liberté! can be found on the website: www.liberte.pl.
2. 6th District
The small art gallery and cultural club in the center of Lodz. The place of civic debates, artistic events, exhibitions and small concerts.
3. 4liberty.eu
Fundacja Industrial on behalf of Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom is the coordinator of 4liberty.eu network. 4liberty.eu is a network of 13 think tanks from CEE (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania and Germany). Our goals: to make the Central European perspective accessible to international audience, to be a reliable source of information on regional issues and the voice of region. Our authors are experts, intellectuals and researchers from CEE. We publish high quality analyses, polemics and articles exclusively in English, building bridges between nations to help in better understanding between experts from particular countries. Portal 4liberty.eu is designed to become a platform where experts and intellectuals representing liberal environment from Central and Eastern Europe can share their opinions and ideas.
4. The Vision of Liberal Social Policy
One of the biggest think tank project implemented by the Foundation. Our aim was to establish the vision of liberal social policy in Poland, which we were executing in the years 2011-2012 together with the Stefan Batory Foundation. Economic crisis, which resulted in huge financial problems of whole Western Europe, will force states to think over their expenditures and as a consequence, activity within social policy. This phenomenon will gain even more significance due to demographic situation and aging of the societies. Growing fiscal deficits obviously cause the situation in which keeping state expenditure at a current level will be difficult to achieve in a longer run. At the same time economic crisis will affect to the biggest extent poor and unqualified people, who cannot function in the world of the growing, fierce rivalry. It seems that in this situation it is crucial to reconsider anew the rules of state’s activities within broadly understood social policy in order to make it more efficient, rational, cheaper and focused on assistance for those in real need. At the end of 2012 we have presented the vision of liberal social policy in Poland.