ORIENTATION OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AT MASARYK UNIVERSITY

 

Faculty of Medicine:

Research carried out by the FoM covered a number of medical disciplines, especially on pre-clinical and clinical levels, at the same time merging with research activities of medical practice in the Ministry of Health supported by single-purpose grants by the Internal Grant Agency of the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic. The four major research projects of the FoM MU supported by single-purpose grants by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports focused on molecular genetics of frequent poly-genetically conditioned diseases, risks factors of cardio-vascular diseases and their timely diagnostic and treatment, a set of issues of neurological sciences related to the plasticity of the central nervous system, and on malignant tumours from the viewpoint of effects of genotoxic substances and progress of the malignant disease. An important proportion of the research activities of the FoM MU was bio-informatics, including definitions of parameters of medical records and their bio-static processing, and the introduction of the most up-to-date information science approaches into teaching of medicine, which was the main focus of projects supported by grants by the Higher Education Development Fund.

 

Faculty of Arts:

Research and development carried out by the Faculty of Arts is in harmony with the scientific and teaching orientation of the Faculty. Research activities have traditionally focused on a wide range of subjects accredited at the Faculty (such as psychology and pedagogic sciences, humanities, historical sciences, art history and theory, aesthetics, linguistics, literary history, etc.). New key research projects have been defined and concentrated into the Centre for Work with Patristic, Mediaeval and Renaissance Texts (research centre – share), Centre of Archaeological Studies of Social Structures of Prehistoric to High Mediaeval Periods (R&D project), and focusing on Codex hymnologicus Bohemiae – Catalogue of Monophonic Latin and Czech Sacred Lyrics of 14th to 18th Centuries, Literary Communication in Genre and Comparative Context, and Philosophy in 20th Century, and Centre for Research of Society, Civilisation and the Arts in Moravia in the Central European Context.             

 

Faculty of Law:

Scientific research of the Faculty of Law, focuses mainly on EU law and the harmonisation of Czech and the EU legislations, on the public administration and decision-making process reform, legal aspects of human rights protection, constitutional courts, reform of private and criminal law, and competition law.

 

School of Social Studies:

Research at the SoSS continually follows tasks solved in the previous years, such as transformation of society, ethnic groups, minorities, marginalized groups, children, youth and family – development trends, social relationships and contexts, consultancy, and social and intervention programmes. Sociological, politological and psychological reflection of identity. Political theory, political systems, European integration. Demographic trends, social policies and programmes, humanitarian aspects of environmental issues.

 

The "Research Centre of Development of Personality in Ethnic and Social Contexts" was established at the School, focusing on research into personality development in different ethnic and social contexts, and examining the effects of social conditions on social, psychological and physical development of children, the youth and in families, and on the co-existence of different ethnic groups and minorities with the help of empirical and qualitative methods. The research aims at developing a programme of prevention of negative phenomena and uneven development of children and youth in the inter-ethnic communication.

 

Faculty of Science:

Faculty of Science, by nature a research institution with many disciplines, pays a lot of attention to the development of research in connection with teaching. These include traditional disciplines of physics, chemistry, biology, geology, geography and mathematics. Intensive research is also underway in 11 research projects of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MoE), three in the area of physics and two in mathematics, two in chemistry, two in biology and two in geology-geography. The establishment of the National Centre for Research into Biomolecules with its inter-disciplinary approach combining chemistry, biochemistry, biology and mathematic modelling marked a major step in the development of research at the Faculty.

 

Faculty of Informatics:

The orientation of the research and development of the Faculty and cooperation with the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (AS CR) has not changed in comparison with the previous years. There is the continuing orientation towards theoretical informatics, parallel and distributed systems, quantum computers, super-computing, electronic typesetting, graphics and virtual reality, computer processing of natural languages, assistive technologies, software engineering and environmental systems.

 

Faculty of Education:

The orientation of research, scholarly and artistic activities of the Faculty follows from its main task, which is the preparation and training of teachers of all grades and types of schools, with a special focus on educational and teaching disciplines.

 

Faculty of Economics and Administration:

The orientation of the research and scientific activities of the Faculty is based on the structure of the subjects and profile of the school, and affects long-term orientation of the research carried out in individual disciplines. The present, research activities focus mainly on economic theories, the transformation process of Czech economy, effectiveness of the public sector, organisational structure of company and corporate economy, public administration and budgeting, regional development and its economical aspects, financial system of the CR and its transformation.

 

Institute of Computer Science:

The Institute of Computer Science is active in the research into, and development of, information technologies with a long-term orientation towards research into digital libraries, including services for libraries. The Institute is also largely responsible for the operation, development, coordination and services in the area of information technologies at Masaryk University, especially including the operation and extensions of academic computer networks, and their incorporation into higher-level network infrastructures.

 

International Institute for Political Studies:

The International Institute For Political Studies of Masaryk University is an independent research centre. Since its establishment in 1990, it has focused on issues of social, economic and legal development of the society. It is university inter-disciplinary institution whose activities contribute to development and enhancement of social sciences, and to the opening of those sciences for the professional and general public. The Institute takes an active part in formation of the current structure of political science by initiation and implementation of own research projects, regular publication of the results of the research in periodical and non-periodical publications, coordination and organisation of conferences, seminars and lectures on topical social issues. International character of the Institute is the result of cooperation of the Czech founders of the Institute with foreign partners from the United States of America and the Netherlands.

 

Institute of Strategic Studies:

The Institute of Strategic Studies is a university-level research, expert and training centre also participating in educational activities of the university. The main tasks of IoSS is preparation of overview and prognostic materials, especially in the areas of politics, social studies, social psychology, demography, economics, ecology, military issues, internal and external security and law for the Czech Republic and countries in the surrounding region.

 

The IoSS closely cooperates especially with other faculties of Masaryk University, and other universities and institutions active in the same area in the Czech Republic and abroad. The IoSS holds conferences and seminars in the subjects of their studies, and it also contributes to the implementation of doctoral study programmes.

 

Centre of Regional Development:

In 2001, the CoRD completed three research projects commissioned by public administrative bodies ("Proposal of Administrative Structure of the Czech Republic on the Basis of Administrative Units and Authorized Municipalities (Grade 3)", "Heart of South Moravia: Regional Tourism Product", and "Analysis and Assessment of the Number of Visitors to South Moravia").

 

The projects were designed as application research projects with involvement of students and young scholars.

 

 

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN R&D

 

Faculty of Medicine:

International cooperation took mainly the form of bilateral cooperation and contacts between individual institutes and clinics. Several young experts of the Faculty received long-term scholarships from top schools of the USA, Western Europe and Australia. Publicity and further cooperation with Mayo Clinic of Rochester, USA, and other foreign universities resulted from the original solution of monitoring and modelling of physiological functions with the help of the ANNA-MI2 digital graphic station, developed by the staff of the First Cardio-Angiological Clinic of the St. Anne Teaching Hospital.

 

New cooperation was established with university departments in Montreal in the area of neural sciences. Traditional involvement of the FoM in international programmes of medicinal epidemiology and prevention continued.

 

Faculty of Arts:

The FoA has quite an extensive and advanced cooperation with universities abroad. Special emphasis should be laid on the development of cooperation in the areas of Slavic studies, classical philology and Mycenaeology, history, etc.

 

Each subject taught at the Faculty of Arts has firmly established official links to similar subjects taught abroad. The contacts are implemented via direct cooperation between the universities, bilateral contracts between faculties, and direct cooperation with European and North American university departments. Significant also is the cooperation with a number of European non-university research institutions.

 

Faculty of Law:

The staff of the Faculty contribute to the implementation of international projects (e.g. Aktion, Ceepus, Open Society Fund, Austrian Institute for Eastern and South-Eastern Europe), and they cooperate with the Faculty of Law of Salzburg University on "Human Rights Protection: Comparison and Integration of Czech Law with EU Law". Academic staff took an active part in international conferences and worked in international professional organisations. The Faculty concluded a Cooperation Agreement with The John Marshall School Chicago.

 

School of Social Studies:

Cooperation takes the form of the involvement in EU programmes and of joint grant projects, including, e.g. the EU Commission projects in the Jean Monnet programme, the Open Society Fund, the Open Society Institute, the Phare programme, etc. On the basis of bilateral agreements with foreign faculties, exchanges of teachers and students, scholarships, and lectures are being organized. The Faculty staff are members of editorial offices of foreign journals, expert commissions, professional societies, and they help organize international conferences.

 

Faculty of Science:

International cooperation took the form of personal exchanges, joint research programmes, conferences, scholarships for young researchers, and joint publications. In addition, reciprocal representations in branch-specific councils of doctoral study programmes (DSPs), scientific councils of individual institutions, participations of the FoS experts in dissertation proceedings, membership in editorial boards of journals, etc. The teachers of the Faculty participate in research projects of EU (INCO-COPERNICUS, KONTAKT, CEEPUS, Geographical Information Systems International Group, TEMPUS, ERASMUS, LEONARDO DA VINCI, Barrande NATO - Science for Peace, Fogaarty, etc.).

 

Faculty of Informatics:

International cooperation was extended by involvement of FoI experts in projects of the 5th EU Framework Programme. At present, the Faculty is involved in the implementation of two ongoing IST projects, namely SCHOLNET and BALCANET, and it cooperates in three other 5th EU FP projects. The Faculty is also member of the "Network of Excellence on Digital Libraries".

 

Faculty of Education:

International cooperation of individual departments follows past cooperation, especially with faculties of education (but also with other schools and institutions) in Slovakia and most European countries, such as with institutions of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, research institutes of European countries, and international learned societies of Europe, USA, Japan, South Africa and other countries. Contacts of the FoE with foreign institutions, especially schools, also included stays of its teachers and students at the partner schools and arrivals of foreign guests at the FoE, especially in the context of SOCRATES and CEEPUS programmes and on other occasions, such as conferences. A significant component of work at the Faculty are artistic activities of the departments of music and fine arts: members of those departments organised numerous exhibitions and concerts in 2001 abroad in various countries. The most significant achievements include the 1st prize of Gaudeamus, Masaryk University Choir, at the choral competition in Lindenholzhausen, Germany.

 

Faculty of Economics and Administration:

Foreign cooperation takes the form of contacts with universities of Europe, USA and Canada in the form of academic and student exchanges (in the context of Tempus, Erasmus-Socrates, CEEPUS, MIBP, PECO AKTION, Fulbright Foundation and Academic Information Centre). The FoEA is a member of the international organisation of ICEG, and it cooperates with 12 faculties abroad. Joint research and publication of research results and study materials is the focus of cooperation with the University of Economy in Bratislava and Academy of Economy in Krakow.

 

 

COOPERATION WITH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS aND NON-GOVERNMENTAL SECTOR

 

Faculty of Medicine:

The FoM has developed direct links to the Biophysical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, since the two institutions deal in molecular biology and genetics. In 2001, the Clinic for Comprehensive Oncology Care was established in the Masaryk Institute for Oncology, a specialised institute of the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic, which thus became one of the first institutions of its kind that had this type of clinic, and the research capacities of the FoM of MU were extended to include the Laboratory of Predictive Oncology. A number of clinics of the FoM cooperated with international pharmaceutical companies in the area of clinical assessment of new drugs and materials.

 

Faculty of Arts:

Basic cooperation in research in the CR has been established between the FoA and individual institutes of the AS CR. The list of partners includes almost all departments of the FoA and their counterparts among Academy institutes. The cooperation also participation in the work of scientific boards, involvement in joint grant projects, or even large synthetic and encyclopaedic projects of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

 

Cooperation with the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS) established in the past has successfully continued and acquired a permanent character. The cooperation mainly involves the Institute for Experimental Psychology of SAS in Bratislava, Institute for Social Sciences of SAS in Košice, Department of Social and Biological Communication of SAS in Bratislava (Institute for Psychology), Archaeological Institute of SAS in Nitra (Archaeology and Museology Institute), Art History institute of SAS in Bratislava (art history), etc.

 

The "Matice Moravská", the oldest survived scientific society established in the Czech lands is seated at the Brno Faculty of Arts and closely interconnected with it. The society aims at support and development of scientific understanding of the past with a special regard to the history of Moravia, Czech lands and Central Europe. The society issues two copies of the Journal of Matice Moravská a year, and has restored own publication activities. In addition, the company holds public lectures on specialist themes at the FoA.

 

A widely-based cooperation exists between the Institute of Education of the Faculty of Arts with various educational institutions (such as School Administration Office in Brno – Department of Education of the Regional Administration, National Educational Fund, Institute of Information in Education, Institute for Educational and Psychological Advice of the CR, Centre of Education of Brno, Czech society for Education, Centres for Pedagogy of Brno, Prešov, Banská Bystrica, etc.).

 

Faculty of Law:

Faculty of Law of MU obtained a grant from the Grant Agency of the AS CR in "Legislative Regulation of Finance and Assets of Territorial Administrative Units ".

 

The staff of the Faculty cooperate with central legal institutions (such as the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court, etc.), with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (on issues from international and European law), and have prepared a number of expert opinions for central state authorities.

 

School of Social Studies:

In individual projects, SoSS departments cooperate with their counterparts at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (such as Psychological Institute of the AS CR, Sociological Institute of AS CR). Cooperation with NGOs mainly includes issues of social prevention and intervention, the life of minorities, the life of Romanies, and the creation and protection of the environment. Joint activities with counterpart institutes and departments of other universities are common and include conferences, joint publications, reciprocal representation in branch-specific boards of the PGS and in scientific councils of various institutions, involvement in dissertation proceedings, participation of staff members of the Faculty in the work of editorial boards of journals, acting as reviewers for the journals, etc.

 

Faculty of Science:

The cooperation took the form of personal exchanges, joint research programmes, joint conferences, scholarships for young researchers, joint publications, reciprocal representations in branch-specified boards of DSP, scientific councils of various institutions, participation in dissertation proceedings, participation of staff members of the Faculty in the work of editorial boards of journals, reviewing materials for those journals. Cooperation in the area of doctoral study programmes is implemented on the basis of agreements with institutes of the AS CR, namely the Institute of Biophysics, Institute of Hydrobiology, Institute of Astronomy, Ondřejov Institute, Institute for Biology of Vertebrates, Institute for Analytic Chemistry, Institute for Physical Metallurgy, Institute of Instrumental Technology and a number of other institutions (Research Institute of Veterinary Medicine, Masaryk Institute for Oncology).

 

New institutes of the AS CR were accredited for doctoral study programmes, including:

 

Faculty of Informatics:

No substantial changes in the orientation of research and development at the Faculty and cooperation with the AS CR were made in comparison with the previous years. The staff of the Faculty continued to cooperate with R&D organisations outside the university  (Institute of Biophysics of AS CR, Institute for Czech Language of AS CR, J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry, University Hospital of Brno).

 

Faculty of Education:

The individual departments of the Faculty cooperate with the following institutes of the AS CR and other organisations: Psychological Institute of AS CR in Brno and Prague, Institute of Physics of Materials of AS CR, Microbial Institute of AS CR of Prague, Institute for Molecular Genetics of AS CR Prague, Institute of Biophysics of AS CR Brno, Institute for Biology of Vertebrates of AS CR Brno, Institute for Instruments of AS CR of Brno, Geonics – Institute of AS CR, Institute for History of AS CR Prague, Institute for Czech Language of AS CR, Institute for Czech Literature of AS CR, Institute of History of the Armed Forces of the CR, Goethe-Institute of Prague, Kultur-Kontakt Brno (non-governmental German, or, rather, Austrian organisation for the support of German language and life and institutions studies), pedagogic and psychological advice centres and special schools, Czech Society for Dyslexia, Union of Czech Mathematicians and Physicists (learned society of the AS Prague), Czech Association of Russian Scholars, Society of Friends of the East, Veronica Brno (environmental issues) and Lipica organisations, Centre for Environmental Education Chaloupky (Okříšky near Třebíč), Rezekvítek (association for environmental education and nature protection, Brno), Natural Reserve of Moravian Karst, Council of the Brno borough of Královo Pole (project of ecological education called the "Tree of Life"), Czech Radio.

 

Faculty of Economics and Administration:

The Faculty cooperates with AS CR (including the Institute of National Economy and the Institute of Theory of Information and Automation) the form of grant cooperation. It also cooperates with the Brno Chamber of Commerce and with major companies (Kooperativa, a.s., Zbrojovka Brno).

 

 

ASSESSMENT OF RESEARCH PROJECTS AND RESEARCH CENTRES

 

Faculty of Medicine:

Four research projects of the FoM MU in the area of molecular pathology of polygene-conditioned diseases, cardiovascular diseases, neural sciences and oncology were assessed both on the basis of annual reports and in the context of international evaluations of their definition and structure. All four of the projects were positively assessed and they continue to be supported. Research projects of the FoM of MU further cover the areas of most frequent pathological conditions and diseases in the main areas of medicine, and they significantly contribute to the development of new methods and technologies by the FoM MU.

 

Faculty of Arts:

The staff of the Faculty are involved in two research projects: "Centre of Archaeological Studies of Social Structures from Prehistoric to High Middle Ages Periods" and "Codex Hymnologicus Bohemiae – Catalogue of Monophonic Latin and Czech Sacred Lyrics of the 14th to 18th Centuries".

The faculty management aim at establishing closer cooperation within the research community in order to meet the requirements for the award of other research projects.

Faculty of Arts cooperates in the research projects of the "Centre for Work with Patristic, Mediaeval and Renaissance Texts" dealing with patristic, medieval and Renaissance texts with the aim of preparing editions of Latin texts of Bohemian origin and publishing commentaries on works of European Christian culture. In-process evaluation carried out in Brno was extremely successful. The project was found unique not only in the Czech Republic but also in the European context.

 

School of Social Studies:

The research project called "Children, Youth and Family in Transformation" continued for a fourth year in 2001. Ten individual themes were completed concerning psychological and sociological issues of child's evolution, family life and formation of personalities within the young generation (teenage children, young grown-ups, young families). The assessment of all of the individual themes as well as the programme as a whole was positive.

The research project of "Ethnic Groups, Minorities and Marginalized Groups" went into its fourth year. The integrating theoretical concept of the approach to the subject is the dimension of social exclusion – social incorporation viewed from cultural, social, economic, political, psychological and, last but not least, socio-political aspects.

In the context of the project, a unique institute was established at the SoSS MU in Brno to deal with issues of social exclusion in the context of other social problems from interdisciplinary and relatively comprehensive points of view.

     "Research Centre of Development of Personality in Ethnic and Social Context" entered the second year of its existence at the SoSS MU. The Centre coordinates activities of a total of five research sections, including the Institute for Research into Children, Youth and Family of the SoSS MU, the working team of the Department of Preventive and Social Paediatrics of VÚZD Brno, the research section of the Faculty of Humanities of Charles University of Prague, the research section for ethnic and socio-linguistic analysis at the Institute for Czech Language of AS CR in Prague, and the research section of Point plc Company in Prague. All research sections fulfilled the tasks set for 2001 and the overall progress of the projects was assessed as excellent in the review proceedings.

 

Faculty of Science:

Research projects contributed significantly to the enhancement of research dimension of the Faculty, especially after six projects of the "Enhancement of Research at Universities ("250") became their permanent part. Thank to those projects, the FoS established two new permanent research institutes, including the "Laboratory of Functional Genomics and Proteomics" in the biology section, and the "Laboratory of Physics of Plasma and Sources of Plasma" in the section of physics.

All of the research projects are included in the organisational structure of the Faculty as independent units. The achieved results are reviewed annually and the conclusions are approved by the Scientific Council of the Faculty and the university. All research projects underway and their results were assessed very positively by the reviewers.

The "Centre for Research into Biomolecules" is an economically independent unit of the Faculty focusing prevailingly on research and doctoral studies. Associated centres are located at the Research Institute of Veterinary Medicine in Brno and the Institute of Biophysics of AS CR in Brno. The organisational structure of the units corresponds to the institutes of the AS CR. The main areas of research include studies of the relationship between the structure and biological function of biomolecules on different levels. The Centre is primarily an important methodological centre. The key methods developed by the Centre include nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and computer modelling and simulation. For these activities, the Centre is equipped with state-of-the-art instruments. In addition to the above, the Centre also applies biochemical and microbiological methods, methods of molecular biology and bioinformatics, protein engineering, and, last but not least, crystallography of biomacromolecules. The research projects carried out by the Centre also touch the areas of nucleic acids, proteins, sugars, supramolecules, small organic molecules and conglomerates of the above molecules. Potential practical outputs of the research carried out by the Centre include the development of drugs and medicines (cancer, salmonellosis), protection of the environment (degradation of halogenated hydrocarbons), or special analytic materials (supramolecular chemistry). Both the assessment by the Ministry of Education and the in-process assessment of the progress of research tasks made by the Scientific Council of the Faculty were positive, and, based on that, a recommendation to continue with all of the research projects was given.

 

Faculty of Informatics:

The Faculty deals is three fields of research, including: "Non-sequential calculation models", "Application of computer image analysis in optical microscopy", and "The man-computer interaction, dialog systems and assistive technologies". All assessments of all our research projects by all of the reviewers were positive, and they recommended that the research projects continue.

 

Faculty of Education:

The FoE is currently engaged in the research project of "Teachers and Health (Psychological Approach)". The greatest benefits of the project are on the theoretical level, because they develop a new theme at the borderline between psychology of education and psychology of health. This original approach has met with a positive response during visits in Poland, the Ukraine, Austria and Switzerland. The Faculty holds regular annual international conferences "Teachers and Health", publishes proceedings of the conferences and distributes them not only across the Czech Republic but also to a number of European universities.  On the practical level, about 20 seminars for teachers are being organized a year as a part of the project activities, and representatives of schools and educational institutions are invited to attend the "Teacher and Health" conferences. One of the planned outputs of the research is the establishment of psychological consultancy centres for teachers, and a few of them are already in pilot operation. First responses to the Teachers and Health" project have also appeared in journals of psychology. The Ministry of Education of CR as the author of the subject of the project, assessed its progress at the FoE as good.

 

Faculty of Economics and Administration:

The research project "Effectiveness factors of development of regions in the CR" – in 2001, the following stages were completed:

  1. Spatial factors of effectiveness of regional development projects.

  2. The relationship between the transformation of public administration and the budgeting system – factors of effectiveness of financing selected activities with an emphasis on the regional level and public sector industries.

 

The Scientific Council reviewed the results achieved and recommends that the project continued as planned.

 

 

USE OF INSTITUTIONAL RESOURCES FOR NON-SPECIFIC RESEARCH

Institutional resources for non-specific research were primarily used by the faculties to upgrade their equipment, to support the participation of their staff in international scientific conferences, purchase of literature, and to engage in teaching-related research projects. The FoE used part of the funds to finance the Faculty R&D projects, and to support student research activities