Jerzy Minczewski was interested in analytical chemistry while still a student and specialized in this field under the leadership of Prof. Marceli Struszyński, then the leading analyst in Poland. He completed his studies interrupted by the outbreak of war in 1944, passing the final exams before the Clandestine Examination Commission of the Faculty of Chemistry of the Warsaw University of Technology. He then took up work, mainly in the sugar industry, and in 1947 he returned to his interests in the Analytical Department of the Chemical Research Institute, headed by Professor Marceli Struszyński. Simultaneously with his work in the Analytical Department, he began, then still as an engineer, to work as a senior assistant in the Chair of Technical Analysis and Commodity Studies at the Faculty of Chemistry of the Warsaw University of Technology. There, in addition to teaching in a makeshift laboratory in the building of Chemical Technology, he designed laboratories for quantitative analysis and technical analysis in the Chemistry building, rebuilt from war damage, to which the Chair of Technical Analysis and Commodity Studies moved in 1950. In 1953 he took the position of Head of the Team of Commissioned Works of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where in 1954 he was appointed to the position of assistant professor. In 1955 the Analytical Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences was established, in which he served as the deputy chairman. In 1956 he was transferred to work at the Institute of Nuclear Research. This fact not only bound him permanently to atomic energy, but also had a significant impact on the development of analytical chemistry. After the launch of the first nuclear reactor in Świerk, Poland, in 1959, at the initiative of Assistant Professor Jerzy Minczewski, work on a new nuclear analytical method – neutron activation analysis – was initiated.

In 1957, Jerzy Minczewski took the position of assistant professor in the Chair of Technical Analysis and Commodity Studies, and in 1959 he was appointed associate professor. After the death of Prof. Marceli Struszyński he was appointed head of the Department of Analytical Chemistry (this year the previous name, i.e. the Chair of Technical Analysis and Commodity Studies, was changed). In 1970-1991, he was the editor-in-chief of the “Chemia Analityczna” journal.

In 1961-1962 Prof. Jerzy Minczewski stayed in Austria, where he organized the Analytical Group in the Laboratory of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Seibersdorf near Vienna, and in 1967-1970 he was the Director of the Radiological Protection and Waste Disposal Division of the MAEA Secretariat in Vienna. Upon his return to Poland in 1970, he was appointed Director of the Institute at the Faculty of Chemistry of the Warsaw University of Technology. In June 1971 he was appointed full professor, and since October 1971 he has been the General Director of the Nuclear Research Institute. In 1973 Prof. Jerzy Minczewski was appointed as a Correspondent Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In 1981-1982, he was the Government Plenipotentiary for Atomic Energy. Prof. Jerzy Minczewski has won numerous awards and has been awarded many times. In 1992, he received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. In 1994, he was awarded the title of the first Honorary Member of the Polish Nucleonic Society.

Prof. Jerzy Minczewski died on 4 August 1995 in Warsaw and is buried in the Powązki Cemetery.