centrE for regional development

Head: RNDr. Václav Toušek, CSc.

In the year 2001, the Research Centre for Regional Development completed three research projects carried out for the state administration.

The "Proposed administrative division of the Czech Republic into administrative areas of Class 3 Towns" met with wide public acceptance. The project was commissioned by the Public Administration Reform Department of the Czech Ministry of the Interior. The proposal prepared by the Research Centre not only listed 179 selected municipalities but it also delineation their administrative territories. Three criteria were used for the selection of the municipalities: their role in state administration in the past, the existence of institutions of state administration, health and social care, secondary schools, and, finally, to what extent it served the surrounding district with regard to job opportunities and services. The Ministry and the Czech government extended the Research Centre's proposal to include 193 selected towns, and was later submitted to the lower house of the Parliament of the Czech Republic as part of the debate on proposed law on reform of civil administration.

Another research project was the "The Regional Tourist Product: the Heart of South Moravia". That project was commissioned by the association of seven rural micro-regions in the districts of Blansko, Greater Brno and Vyškov. The representative of the association was the Jedovnice Municipal Office (also participating in the project were another 12 towns and 26 villages in the three districts). The project was submitted as a pilot project under the Programme for Rural Renewal, and it was co-financed by the Czech Ministry for Regional Development. The project consisted of two parts: in the first (analytical) part, all the information and materials necessary for the development of a regional tourist product (geographic description, analysis and evaluation of the existing tourism opportunities, services, and information, and a field survey of accommodation facilities and numbers of visitors) were gathered. The second part was a concept of an action plan for the support of the tourist industry in the region (suggested priorities and measures in the area of tourist infrastructure, a structure for organized tourism, proposed tourist programmes and routes, and marketing support for the tourist industry). The result and the final product of the project was to publish the Heart of South Moravia on the Internet: it is a comprehensive tourist information system, a comprehensive listing of all the available tourist services in the various parts of the region. The product is available on the Internet at www.tismorava.cz. The product format is not final. The Centre for Regional Development developed the content, the technical and graphic structure, and installed the information database. Further updates and additions (texts, photos, foreign language versions) will be prepared by Tourist Information Centres in the region. A demo version of the Product was successfully presented at Regiontour 2002 Trade Fair in Brno.

The third project, "Analysis and evaluation of the numbers of visitors in the South Moravia Region", was produced by the Centre at the request of the South Moravia Regional Authority. The project involved surveys of 36 main tourist centres in the South Moravia region and an evaluation of the information acquired. The 45-page study (including database) has already been used in developing the Tourist Industry Development Strategy for the South Moravia Region.

A positive aspect is the fact that the majority of the Centre's projects were conceived as applied research involving participation of students and young academics. Most of them were from among undergraduates and doctorate students in the Regional Studies and Administration courses at the Faculty of Economics and Administration, and students of Geography at the Faculty of Science. The Centre's teachers were active in doctoral study programmes at their own and other faculties. The Centre helped to organize the 4th International Colloquium on Regional Studies (Znojmo, June 2001). At that forum, research papers of 16 doctoral students were presented