The Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences (Bull.Pol. Ac.: Tech.) is published bimonthly by the Division IV Engineering Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, since the beginning of the existence of the PAS in 1952. The journal is peer‐reviewed and is published both in printed and electronic form. It is established for the publication of original high quality papers from multidisciplinary Engineering sciences with the following topics preferred: Artificial and Computational Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, Civil Engineering, Control, Informatics and Robotics, Electronics, Telecommunication and Optoelectronics, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Thermodynamics, Material Science and Nanotechnology, Power Systems and Power Electronics.

Journal Metrics: JCR Impact Factor 2018: 1.361, 5 Year Impact Factor: 1.323, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 2017: 0.319, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2017: 1.005, CiteScore 2017: 1.27, The Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education 2017: 25 points.

Abbreviations/Acronym: Journal citation: Bull. Pol. Ac.: Tech., ISO: Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci.-Tech. Sci., JCR Abbrev: B POL ACAD SCI-TECH Acronym in the Editorial System: BPASTS.

It is often said that biotechnology is “as old as the world”. However, only now modern biotechnologies based on genetic engineering provide innovative solutions underpinning the development and transformation of the modern economy, thereby creating real opportunities to guarantee the supply of food, medicines and energy for the world's ever-growing population (in November 2022, the world's population will exceed 8 billion). The development of innovative technologies is often conditional on public acceptance and, as a consequence depends on public opinion, coherent legislation and a profound transformation from an oilbased economy to a circular and sustainable bioeconomy. Poland, as part of the European Union, belongs to the group of countries where such modern concepts are developing.

The article presents an analysis and evaluation of the accident rate in selected European Union countries. On the basis of available statistical data, the analysis of accidents in various sectors of the European Union economy was carried out. Afterwards, a ranking of countries regarding accidents in the construction industry was developed. For the selected representative countries, analysis of changes in the indicators which characterize the accident rate during the period between 2008 and 2012 was carried out. Conclusions resulting from the conducted research were formulated.

Artykuł prezentuje analizę problematyki zarządzania wielopoziomowego na przykładzie polityki energetycznej Unii Europejskiej. Proces integracji w Europie Zachodniej stanowi złożone zjawisko polityczne, społeczne i gospodarcze. Odpowiednie zarządzanie złożoną strukturą UE jest zarówno próbą skuteczności procesu integracji, jak również ważnym wyzwaniem, od którego zależy przyszłość projektu integracyjnego. Polityka energetyczna stanowi interesujące studium przypadku, na bazie którego można doskonale zaobserwować zarówno możliwości, jakie oferuje model multi-level governance dla jej skutecznego prowadzenia, jak również podstawowe trudności w jego praktycznym wdrażaniu. Celem artykułu jest pokazanie, iż koncepcja wielopoziomowego zarządzania mogłaby być bardziej efektywnie realizowana w polityce energetycznej UE, ale są ku temu różnorodne ograniczenia.

The article includes considerations and author’s proposals concerning the regional dimension of social policy. This aspect of social policy has not been investigated widely so far. The scope of regionalism and its forms are linked with the dominant social doctrine in a given country. They reflected in the ratio of territorial self-governments’ own incomes against those of the state budget, and in the institutional freedom they have in the area of benefit structuring, that is in decentralization. In the case of Poland, the political changes connected with the doctrinal ones hamper the development of regional social policy. This may have a negative impact on the coordination and implementation of social policy actions undertaken on different government levels and on the adjustment of social benefits to the needs of a region’s residents.

This article deals with the problem of the right to social security in the state of residence in the light of Regulation No 883/2004 on the coordination of social security systems. The judgment of the Court of Justice of 8 May 2019 in case C-631/17 SF v Inspecteur van de Belastingdienst served as an inspiration for the above-mentioned topic. In its judgement the Court has made a binding interpretation of Article 11(3)(e) of the said Regulation in the context of the situation of a national of a member state employed as a seaman on board a vessel flying the flag of a third state by an employer established in a member state other than the worker’s state of residence. The aim of the article is to justify the right to social security in the state of residence based on Article 11(3)(e) of the Regulation 883/2004. The analysis shows that it is necessary to introduce appropriate changes to the Polish legislation on the social security system. Simultaneously, as far as seafarers are concerned, it is desirable to consider the specificities of the work at sea, including the introduction of maritime social security as a specific type of social security, similar to French law for instance. The changes should be introduced gradually to avoid the risk of decline in the employment of Polish seafarers by EU shipowners.

The assurance of future raw materials supply to the EU mineral industry has become, in recent years, one of the priority tasks of the EU Commission, geological surveys and several research centers. After many years of negligence, the problem of developing supply risk of many raw materials in Europe has been perceived, along with the menace to the EU economy competitiveness coming from dynamically developing countries such as China, India and others - basically of Asian origin. This has initiated a new mineral policy within the EU zone, referring mainly to non-fuels. One of the starting points for this activity has become the assessment of the EU mineral resources potential and identification of the raw materials that are critical for the harmonious and sustainable development and technological progress. The paper briefly presents the results of research work focused on the critical raw materials assessment, which were conducted by the Initiative for the Raw Materials Supply. Its core is the presentation of Polish mineral reserve base and its potential as a possible source of critical raw materials for the European Union. The criticality analysis was based on three categories, i.e.: economic consequences of the supply limitation, supply risk of reduction (fluctuation or disruption), and environmental risk referring to countries with weak environmental performance in order to protect the environment that jeopardize the supply of raw materials to the EU. For their quantitative assessment there were proposed three aggregated indices, while for the forecast purposes - 10-year period. The criticality ratio was determined for the 41 most important and most frequently used raw materials. On the grounds of the research made up to now, these raw materials were preliminary divided into three groups. As a critical to the EU economy, 14 raw materials of major economic importance were discriminated, i.e.: antimony, beryllium, cobalt, fluorite, gallium, germanium, graphite, indium, magnesium, niobium, PGM, rare earths, tantalum, and tungsten. They are characterized by high supply risk, which is mainly due to limited number of their sources - dominated by a few countries, in particular China. The risk of supply disruptions is boosted by low rate of utilization of secondary sources, and limited scale of substitution as well. The majority of the above-mentioned raw materials are crucial for the new technologies development. The remaining minerals arealso - though to a lesser extent - imperiled with a supply deficit. Despite they are also of economic importance, their indispensability for the advanced technologies development is relatively smaller. Taking into account the raw materials that are critical for the European Union economy, Poland cannot be considered as its resource base. The source of these raw materials are not only scarce in Poland, but also they are not produced, and their demand is now - and according to forecasts is going to be in the future - met by imports. However, the role of our country as a manufacturer of finished products from components of foreign origin is anticipated to increase. The raw materials in question are not considered exactly critical for Polish economy, as any industrial branch based upon their utilization has emerged so far. Therefore, they are of limited economic importance. Presumable utilization of very limited sources of above-mentioned critical raw materials in Poland could be anticipated in a perspective of at least 20 years. The most probable in this respect are the following: opening out the new Mo-W-Cu ore deposit Myszków, and the promotion of exploration works for similar deposits.