For years, Lodz University of Technology has been consistently building its position in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). This was where Poland’s first HCI master’s program was created, and today the university is considered one of the leading research centres in Central Europe. Its laboratories are buzzing with innovation, and collaborations with European partners such as TU Wien, University College London (UCL), University of St. Gallen, University of Oslo, Universität Bremen, University of Copenhagen, and TU Berlin make it a place where novel HCI projects and ideas are born.
The international CHIncredible Marathon was a scientific event, but also an adventure in which participants not only wrote papers but also learned the culture of academic writing, peer reviewing, and benefitting from expert mentorship.
“It wasn’t just a conference or a workshop—it was a unique intellectual experience,” said one participant from UCL.
For Lodz University of Technology, this was yet another event confirming its significant role in the development of the field focused on human-computer interaction.
“The Polish HCI community is developing at an impressive pace. Lodz University of Technology created the country’s first master’s program dedicated to this field and has modern research laboratories. Events like CHIncredible allow young researchers to learn how to write world-class papers and to build international relations—essential for being recognized at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, the most prestigious HCI conference in the world, organized by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM),” emphasized Prof. Paweł W. Woźniak from TU Wien, Chair of the Polish SIGCHI Chapter and the main coordinator of the marathon.
Organizing such events is not only prestigious but also steadily strengthens the university’s visibility.
“We hosted the first fully hybrid SIGCHI conference in 2021. Now we’re adding yet another initiative that shows that Lodz is the place where the future stars of HCI are born,” added Prof. Krzysztof Grudzień from the Faculty of Electrical, Electronic, Computer and Control Engineering at Lodz University of Technology.
The atmosphere of the marathon was friendly and supportive, but it went hand in hand with intensive work. Participants spent long hours writing and refining their texts, supported both by the modern infrastructure of Lodz University of Technology and the dedication of their mentors. As they stressed, it was a rare opportunity to fully focus on producing publications, while at the same time building valuable international networks. The event was held at the Institute of Applied Computer Science, Faculty of Electrical, Electronic, Computer and Control Engineering, and was co-organized by TU Wien, SIGCHI, and the Polish Information Processing Society.