Department of Theoretical and Applied Economics in Lviv Polytechnic National University was founded as the Department of Political Economy in 1940. Associate Professor P.Tysiachnyy was Head of the Department from 1949 to 1964.
Professor Ivan Tyvonchuk was leading it during forty years (1964-2004). In 1951 he has been graduated from Lviv Trade and Economic Institute. Since 1952 he had started to teach at the Department of Political Economy in Polytechnic. During his work at the Department he defended his Ph.D. thesis and later in 1980 he became Doctor of Science defending his thesis on “The political economic problems of the international division of labor and trade effectiveness in the socialist countries”. Professor Ivan Tyvonchuk supervised almost 10 Ph.Ds for gaining a degree. He is the author of over 220 research works (3 of them are monographs). I.Tyvonchuk is Honorary Professor of Lviv Polytechnic National University.
In 1992 the name of the Political Economy Department was changed into the Department of Economic Theory. From 2001 to 2003 it was called the Department of Theoretical Economics and Economics of Ukraine. In 2003 the Department was finally renamed into the Department of Theoretical and Applied Economics.
Zhanna Poplavska, who is Doctor of Science, Professor and a specialist in the field of strategic management, headed the Department in 2004. She graduated from the Faculty of Economics at Ivan Franko Lviv National University. She is working in Polytechnic since 1987. She defended her Ph.D. thesis on the subject of planning of interindustrial complexes development in 1986 at the Institute of Economics of Latvian Academy of Sciences and in 1994 Sc.D. thesis based on the problems of strategic management in the Council of the Studying of Productive Forces of Ukraine`s Academy of Sciences. She published more than 250 research works in the field of strategic management, competition and competitiveness and other microeconomic issues. She is the author and co-author of three monographs, finishing the fourth. She also supervised 5 Ph.Ds and 1 Sc.D. and is the member of two academic councils of Ph.D and Sc.D thesis defence.