Institute of Geological Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Institute of Geological Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Інститут геологічних наук НАН України; Instytut heolohichnykh nauk NAN Ukrainy). A scientific research institute formed in Kyiv in 1926 from the merger of several geological sections of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (VUAN) and of the People's Commissariat of Education. Until 1934 it was called the Geological Institute, and then, until 1939, the Institute of Geology. Currently the institute has 15 departments, 3 laboratories, a geological museum (est 1927), a library, a branch in Kryvyi Rih (est 1972), a research drilling ship, and an experimental pilot plant (est 1980). Its Lviv branch (1939–41, 1944–50) later became the Institute of the Geology and Geochemistry of Fossil Fuels. Its geophysics laboratory and magnet station gave rise to the Institute of Geophysics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1961; now Institute of Geophysics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine). Another separate research institution—now the Institute of Geochemistry, Mineralogy, and Ore Formation of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine—was established in 1969 on the basis of its sector of geochemistry, mineralogy, petrography, and minerals and sector of metallogeny. The Ukrainian Paleontological Society, the Ukrainian Stratigraphic Committee, and the Scientific Council of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine on the problem of ‘Origins of Oil and Natural Gas’ are affiliated with the institute.
The institute’s 15 departments are combined into 5 divisions: general geology; paleontology and stratigraphy; fuel and energy complex; lithology and geology of oceans and seas; and hydrogeology and engineering geology. The institute’s scientists (150 in 2024) conduct research in general, Precambrian, marine, and petroleum geology of Ukraine as well as geotectonics, lithology, stratigraphy, hydrogeology, and paleontology. They systematically study Ukraine’s territory and seas with the aim of locating new mineral deposits and have written theoretical studies on the volcanic formation of islands, comparative planetology, and the mathematical modeling of shock-wave effect on mineral transformations. Much theoretical and applied work has been done in hydrogeology (the location and tapping of underground water resources near major Ukrainian urban centers, the rational use of water, and soil amelioration). The institute’s members also participate in international studies of oceans. Research areas that have recently been developed include coal and marine geology, the modeling of geological heat- and mass-transfer processes, and the application of aerogeology and cosmic geology as a prospecting tool.
Research results have been published as monographs and in the quarterly journal Heolohichnyi zhurnal (1934–) and Zbirnyk naukovykh prats' Instytutu heolohichnykh nauk NAN Ukraїny (17 vols, 2008–). The institute’s directors have all been prominent geologists: Pavlo Tutkovsky (1926–30), Volodymyr Riznychenko (1930–2), Mykola Svitalsky (1934–7), Yevhen Burkser (1938–9), Borys Chernyshov (1939–46), Volodymyr Luchytsky (1947–9), Andrii Babynets (1949–53), Volodymyr Bondarchuk (1953–63), Vladimir Porfirev (1963–8), Yevhen Lazarenko (1969–71), Valentyn Didkovsky (1971–7), Yevhen Shniukov (1977–92), Petro Shpak (1992– 6), Petro Hozhyk (1997– 2020), and Stella Shekhunova (2021–).
The institute’s official website: https://igs-nas.org.ua/
Serhiy Bilenky, Swiatoslaw Trofimenko
[This article was updated in 2026.]