[3] Collegium Polonicum is also a branch (Polish: filia) of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Słubice, in whose building this joint unit is physically based.

As branch of Adam Mickiewicz University, Collegium Polonicum is one of four such units located outside Poznań and notably housing the Academic Secondary School for General Education in Słubice (Polish: Uniwersyteckie Liceum Ogólnokształcące w Słubicach[5]).

The European dimension in the re-establishment of the Viadrina University in Frankfurt (Oder) in 1989, as enshrined in this university's founding mission, is to “fulfil distinctive tasks concerning the German-Polish foreign policy relations and culturally with a view to Europe” (German:„…außenpolitisch im deutsch-polnischen Verhältnis und kulturell mit Blick auf Europa besondere Aufgaben zu erfüllen“).

First ideas came up to create university infrastructure – initially only residences for Polish Viadrina students – also in Słubice, i.e. in the twin city of Frankfurt (Oder).

Yet the Cooperation Agreement between the Minister for National Education of the Republic of Poland and the Minister for Science and Culture of the Federal State of Brandenburg[7] signed on the day of the ceremonial opening of the Viadrina European University (i.e. 6 September 1991), manifests the intention to create in Słubice student residences as well as an institution for research and teaching, including library and laboratory facilities.

With its opening, the Collegium Polonicum received the status of a branch (Polish: ośrodek zamiejscowy respectively filia) of Adam Mickiewicz University, to which also belongs the library.

For the Collegium Polonicum building, the design of the Poznań architect Tomasz Durniewicz was selected in a limited competition organised by Adam Mickiewicz University.

From 1994 onwards, a student residences campus was constructed on a post-military site according to a design by the Warsaw architectural office Pracownia Architektoniczna BNS Warszawa.

[12] The construction of the Collegium Polonicum and the student campus was financed to 65% from the budget of the Republic of Poland, to 20% from European funds under the PHARE programme and to 15% from the Foundation for German-Polish Cooperation.

[13][14] In accordance to the joint concept of 1992 and the interministerial agreement of 2002, it is the Adam Mickiewicz University only that is the owner of the properties and obliged to cover maintenance and operational costs (see Article 6 of the Treaty[15]).

Likewise, Collegium Polonicum and Europa-Universität Viadrina can be reached as a domestic call from the respective other country by means of a microwave transmission between the telephone systems of both institutions.

In August 2019, the Europa-Universität Viadrina was granted funding of in total €4.16 million for 2019-23 by the Federal State of Brandenburg for four professorships and material resources within the project European New School of Digital Studies.

This exceptional financial support granted by the Federal State of Brandenburg for a discipline field so far not represented neither at the Viadrina European University nor at the Collegium Polonicum has been justified by the fact that the European New School of Digital Studies is "initially to be established as an academic unit of the Viadrina, and in perspective to be further developed into an international faculty with the participation of foreign universities".

[27] The number of academic staff of the Adam Mickiewicz University working at the Collegium Polonicum at the time of its formal opening in 2001 was officially given as 65, including 25 professors.

This institute was created jointly with the Viadrina European University in order to contribute to sharpen the interdisciplinary academic profile of the Collegium Polonicum.

2)[28] adopted by both universities in 2012, were identical with those defined in the 2002 Treaty for the Collegium Polonicum, i.e. activities "with special consideration of problems of the European Integration, border regions, and comparative research in an international and intercultural dimension”.

As a result of the closure of the Polish-German Research Institute in 2018, and of the continuous decrease in the number of study courses offered at the Collegium Polonicum, the academic staff of Adam Mickiewicz University there is reduced to six post-doc lecturers, who are teaching students of "Polish Philology as a Foreign Language", and pupils of the Academic Secondary School for General Education.

A persistent practical problem of cooperation between the academic staff of the two universities is, among other things, the still existing wage gap between employees in Germany and Poland.

For instance, a BSc graduate working half-time as student assistance (German: Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft - WHK) employed by the Viadrina European University earns a monthly net salary of about 920 EUR.

[32] This sum is roughly equivalent to the monthly gross salary of PLN 3,800 for a post-doc employed by the Adam Mickiewicz University as assistant professor (Polish: adiunkt).

In the 1990s, the existing state universities in Poland were faced with a constantly increasing demand for study places that by far exceeded the capacities in their ageing building stock.

Following the decrease in the number of students in Poland (from 1.93 million in the academic year 2008–09 to 1.23 million in 2018-19)[35] and the massive expansion of the building stock and personnel capacities at the universities’ main seats (in the case of the Adam Mickiewicz University, particularly on the new Morasko Campus in the north of Poznań), the demand for study courses offered in branches rapidly decreased.

With the 2011 reform of the Polish higher education legislation, the further offer of study courses at branches was made dependent on the permanent presence of lecture staff there, and the formation of corresponding academic units.

The number of students on study courses offered by the Adam Mickiewicz University at the Collegium Polonicum peaked at 1,150 in the academic year 2004–05, and has been declining steadily ever since (200 in 2015-16).

When fully operating as a secondary school offering three tracks, it will occupy around half of the 32 lecture and laboratory rooms of the Collegium Polonicum building.

This was to be observed again between 2010 and 2013 in the course of an initiative launched at that time by the then Viadrina President Günter Pleuger and his Poznań counterpart to raise the academic profile of the Collegium Polonicum.

In total, the Collegium Polonicum has been visited by two Presidents of the European Parliament (Jerzy Buzek, Josep Borrell), two Presidents of Poland (Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Bronisław Komorowski) and two Federal Presidents of Germany (Richard von Weizsäcker, Joachim Gauck), one Marshal of the Sejm (Józef Oleksy) and one President of the Bundestag (Wolfgang Thierse), four Prime Ministers of Poland (Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Jerzy Buzek, Marek Belka) and one Chancellor of Germany (Helmut Kohl), three European Commissioners (Günter Verheugen, Michel Barnier, Corina Crețu), as well as five Polish Ministers (Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Mirosław Handke, Waldemar Dąbrowski, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Radosław Sikorski) and four German Federal Ministers (Claudia Nolte, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Joschka Fischer, Guido Westerwelle).