The history of the Institute is closely related to the Poznan School of Electrical Engineering and dates back to 1929 when the State Higher School of Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering was established. The head of the then Faculty of Electrical Engineering was Bazyl Iwaniek-Kowalczuk. The first graduates of the School obtained the diploma of an electrical technologist in January 1932. The school was located at Kluczborska Street and Rynek Wildecki, i.e. at today's Maria Skłodowskiej-Curie Square. In 1939, the German StaatsIngeniurschule began operating in the school buildings.
Immediately after the end of the war, in February 1945, efforts to establish an academic technical university began, and in the fall of 1945, the State Higher School of Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering has renamed the Engineering School - a three-year semi-academic university with three faculties: mechanical, electrical and construction with a department of architecture.
The ordinance of the Minister of Higher Education of 1952 completely changed the organizational structure of the Engineering School. Under this ordinance, established departments, i.e. research and teaching units typical for academic schools, took the place of the existing establishments.
In 1955, a resolution of the Council of Ministers transformed Engineering School into an academic university - the Poznan University of Technology. The 1955/56 academic year was the first academic year of the technical university in Poznan. There were four faculties at that time, and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering was one of them. The Faculty of Electrical Engineering consisted of 10 Departments and the Interdepartmental Institute of New Energy Sources, established in December 1967.
In 1970 major changes occurred at the university due to the introduction of the institute structure site. Institutes were created in place of the department. The Institute of Industrial Electrical Engineering, when it was established in 1970, was one of the three Institutes included in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. The Institute was established as a result of the merger of five organizational units:
- Departments of Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering,
- Department of Agricultural Electrification,
- Department of Electrical Machines,
- Department of Electric Drives,
- Department of Lighting Technology and Electrical Installations.
The first director of the Institute of Industrial Electrical Engineering was the former head of the Department of Lighting Technology and Electrical Installations - prof. Mieczysław Banach (1970-1981). This function was also performed by prof. Zbigniew Stein (1981-1991), prof. Ryszard Nawrowski (1991-2002 and 2008-2019), prof. Konrad Skowronek (2002-2008) and prof. Wojciech Szeląg (2019-2020).
In 2006, as a result of the structural changes, the Institute was renamed the Institute of Electrical Engineering and Electronics of the Poznan University of Technology. Currently, it is part of the Faculty of Automatic Control, Robotics and Electrical Engineering. The function of the Institute's director is performed by prof. Cezary Jędryczka, and the Institute consists of the following departments:
- Division of Theoretical and Applied Electrical Engineering,
- Division of Power Electronics and Control,
- Division of Mechatronics and Electrical Machines,
- Division of Metrology, Electronics and Light Engineering.