The Graduate School for Social Research (GSSR) was created at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 1992. The idea of the GSSR was conceived by a group of scholars, philosophers, sociologists, lawyers, economists, psychologists and political scientists from the Polish Academy of Sciences and other institutions of higher education with the objective of training students in the field of contemporary social and cultural sciences.

The founders of the GSSR were dissatisfied with the existing system of doctoral studies, often consisting solely of the individual work of the candidates under the guidance of their academic supervisor thus excessively restricting the scope of their interests and delaying the completion of the PhD dissertation. The founders' intention was to establish a European centre of doctoral studies with high academic standards, whose diploma would be highly respected both in Poland and abroad, providing a springboard for a scientific or professional career.

The GSSR does not seek to replace the existing PhD programmes in other Polish institutions, but at the same time it offers what is intended to be a more efficient and a more interdisciplinary educational approach. Each student pursues an individual course of studies, designed jointly with a personal academic tutor. Students are required to attend a fixed number of hours of classes and earn a prescribed number of credits.

The studies in the GSSR are intramural and continue for no more than four years, concluding with the defence of the PhD dissertation (with the possibility of extension for one year and maternity leave). The defence is held at the appropriate institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences or at a higher education institution in accordance with the relevant legal provisions.

The Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences provided the GSSR with office and classroom space, administrative assistance and access to its library and archives. Nonetheless, the GSSR is an organizationally and financially autonomous part of the Institute, with its own programme, Scientific Council and School Board and with a separate budget.

The GSSR cooperates with the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris, the Political Science Department of Freie Uniersität Berlin, the Universities of Cologne and Bremen, the Marc Bloch Institute in Berlin, and the New School for Social Research in New York.

In January 1995 the international jury chaired by Lord Ralf Dahrendorf and appointed by the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna awarded the GSSR the Hannah Arendt Prize, which was established by the Körber Foundation for institutions promoting reforms in the higher education system in Central and Eastern Europe. In October 2000 the GSSR received the Hannah Arendt Prize for the second time.

Today the GSSR has 213 doctoral students, including 79 foreign students from 21 countries.