This Tuesday, Charles University hosted a much-awaited conference organised by Science|Business and the Science|Business Widening initiative. The event was part of a series of debates on how to transform the Widening Programme.

"One of the panel members made everybody chuckle during the interview when he said that I had cleverly designed a project on the joys of what most of us do most of the day," says Anežka Kuzmičová. She has won a prestigious ERC Starting Grant.

A scientific team led by Matyáš Fendrych from the Faculty of Science of Charles University has succeeded in discovering a new signalling mechanism in the so-called fast auxin pathway. And explained results in a publication just a few days ago.

“Be a sponge – keep absorbing information from a broad perspective,” says Professor Albert Heck from Utrecht University. Heck is internationally recognised as one of the top pioneers in the use of mass spectrometry for large-scale protein research.

The only certainty in our lives is its end. Yet we avoid the subject of dying as much as possible. “Palliative care is not just about the end of life. It is about living well for as long as possible, despite a serious illness,” says Martin Loučka, assistant professor at the Third Faculty of Medicine.

The ERC grant competition is one of the most prestigious: top scientists regularly compete for funding. Those working at Czech institutions who receive top marks but fail to get backing, can receive "ERC CZ" funding from the Ministry of Education. 

“Any country should be able to draw upon its assets. Since we do not have mineral deposits, we must focus on education,” says top Czech economist Jan Švejnar, based at Columbia University in New York and at the CERGE-EI Economic Institute in Prague.

Janet Tassell is a professor at at Western Kentucky University. During the winter semester, she spent three months as a Fulbright Scholar at the Faculty of Education, Charles University, where she conducted research to apply mindfulness practices in mathematics instruction.

A year-and-a-half since it was launched into orbit 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has proven to be an overwhelming success. The infrared observatory has stunned viewers from the get-go with images of unparalleled precision.

The Bolzano lecture series, organised by the Learned Society of the Czech Republic and the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, returned to Charles University this week. The guest lecturer invited to speak this year was German-born astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel, co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020.