Dear reader,

In this volume Masaryk University presents the fifth annual report of its activities for the past calendar and financial year (i.e., the year 1998).

The past year saw Masaryk University continuing in its process of development, the trends of which serve to confirm its position as the second university of the Czech Republic (as it approaches eighty years of existence) and the largest school of higher education in Brno. The growing number of students and applicants is a reflection of the level of interest in university–level studies on the part of the public and stresses the importance of these for the future and the practical needs of an open framework of education. By the increase in the range of subjects it offers for study and its growing and well–served student capacity, Masaryk University endeavours to meet the needs and demands of society. An ongoing task is to improve levels of quality within the workings of the University; in this regard we have recorded some encouraging results, such as the increased volume of grant activities. There are, however, areas in which further improvement is necessary. The elevation to senior–lecturer and professor status of certain of our staff would also help improve the profile, in terms of age, of our teams of highly–qualified academics.

The range of opportunities offered by the University was extended still further in the past year; the School of Social Studies, which had previously operated within the Faculty of Arts, became the eighth faculty of the University. The courses this new faculty offers are supported by intensive research activities, a must for universities throughout the world.

Masaryk University has also succeeded in establishing a foothold on a future campus in Bohunice. The obtaining of the site on Kamenice close to the Bohunice hospital has made possible the starting of work on a modern morphological centre for the Faculty of Medicine and allowed us to take those first all–important steps toward establishing an integrated site for the Faculties of Medicine and Science. By obtaining twenty hectares of land and, in the light of new laws in effect since the turn of this year, Masaryk University is in a position to intensify its quest for the finances needed to populate this site with new buildings.

This annual report has the same structure as the reports of previous years. Comparison of these highlights the growing dynamics of MU development in the very successful six–year period of office of Rector Eduard Schmidt, a period which concluded in the second half of 1998.

The next annual report will no longer be a voluntary exercise on the part of the University itself but will comprise part of its obligations in providing to the public information on the University and its newly appointed administrative board. This will be obligatory for the University under the new Act on Higher Education.

Using the figures and data to be found in this publication you may evaluate for yourselves the foundations which Masaryk University has laid in order to fulfil its role as a school of higher education for the public under Law no. 111/1998 in Coll. on schools of higher education.