Central Mining Institute is a research institute associated since 1945 with the mining industry and the region of Upper Silesia. The Institute shall set up 20 years earlier Experimental Mine "Barbara" in Mikołów. The activities of the Institute has always concerned the most important problems of safety, the development of modern technologies and techniques of mining and environmental protection against the effects of industrial activity, particularly mining. The results of the research performed at the Institute formed the basis of modern and safe Polish mining industry, and many of them were used in the mining industry worldwide.