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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• vaccines
• Tomáš Šimůnek
• pharmacy
• pharmacology
• Hradec Králové

• Sabina Ali
• Martin Pinkas, CU archive

“Pharmacy is unique because it both opens a door for students to learn more about the natural sciences and provides the stability of a good career,” says the dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové Tomáš Šimůnek. in the following Forum interview, he discusses not only life at the faculty but also vaccines against the coronavirus.

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• Lenka Rovná
• research
• 4EU+ Alliance
• education
• European integration

• Kristýna Kolínová, Petr Podzimek
• René Volfík, Shutterstock

Last month, the rectors of the 4EU+ Alliance established a new legal entity. The association, based in Heidelberg, aims to strengthen cooperation among all six member universities, says Charles University’s Vice-Rector for European Affairs Lenka Rovná.

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• languages
• history
• books
• Iceland
• Nordic sagas

• Martin Rychlík
• Lucie Korecká, Shutterstock

As a little girl, Lucie Korecká received a copy of The Hobbit and was enchanted by J.R.R. Tolkien’s world, explored further in fantastic detail in The Lord of the Rings. The work was influenced by Icelandic and Norse mythology and later Korecká pursued her passion for Old Norse at the Faculty of Arts, where she is completing her PhD.

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• alumni
• foreign correspondent
• culture
• Belgium
• Lifelong Learning

• Marcela Uhlíková
• Lukáš Dolanský, Shutterstock

For viewers of public broadcaster Czech TV, he is both a trusted reporter and a familiar face: Charles University graduate Lukáš Dolanský. The reporter began in domestic affairs 11 years ago but has focused on foreign affairs for the last four or so, reporting as Czech TV's man in Belgium.

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• hydrology
• travel
• water
• civilization
• Zbyněk Hrkal

• Martin Rychlík
• Z. Hrkal's personal archive, Shutterstock

“Of all the countries I have visited, Israel is among the most exceptional. It’s admirable that in such unfavourable conditions – both natural and political – they’ve built such a well-functioning society,” says hydrogeologist Zbyněk Hrkal, who has travelled to an incredible 79 countries around the globe.

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• Stanislav Komárek
• awards
• books
• biology

• Michal Andrle
• Stanislav Komárek’s archive

Winning the “Book of the Year” award in one of Europe’s largest countries is a major success, not just for the author but for Czech culture as a whole. When it happens twice in a row, it speaks to something more: obsession, in a positive sense. That is the kind of success scientist Stanislav Komárek has enjoyed in Ukraine.

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• coronavirus threat
• women of CU
• psychiatry
• mental health
• Lucie Bankovská Motlová

• Pavla Hubálková
• Vladimír Šigut

Lucie Bankovská Motlová teaches at the Dept. of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology at the Third Faculty of Medicine at Charles University. She is outspoken about her field, how it can help patients live regular lives and gives valuable advice on how to maintain good mental health during the pandemic. 

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• interviews
• Pavel Hulva
• wolves
• wildlife protection

• Marcela Uhlíková
• Pavel Hulva's archive, Shutterstock

The Carpathian Mountains, ranging across seven countries including neighbouring Slovakia, are often considered one of the last areas of true wilderness in Central Europe, and for zoologist, microbiologist and ecologist Pavel Hulva they are something like a second home.

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• history
• food
• socialist Czechoslovakia
• consumer society
• Martin Franc

• Vladimír Šigut, Shutterstock

If you understand Czech and are interested in Czech cuisine, you will want to look up the popular internet series Zmlsané dějiny co-hosted by historian Martin Franc. Franc, who teaches at Charles University, delights in debunking culinary myths but also gives credit where it is historically due.

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• CLIP
• Jan Trka
• medicine
• diagnostics
• cancer treatment

• Pavla Hubálková
• Vladimír Šigut

Hematologist Jan Trka grew up in a family of teacher-scientists, so from an early age science was an integral part of life. Perhaps it is why he became the head of the scientific-diagnostic laboratory at  Motol University Hospital and is now the vice-dean at CU’s Second Faculty of Medicine.

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• CU sports
• Videos
• Mixed martial arts

• Jiří Novák
• Vladimír Šigut

He has degrees from three universities, worked for a couple of years for the Office of the Government and lectures at CU’s Faculty of Law. His next ambition, though, is decidedly non-academic: he wants to fight in mixed martial arts (MMA). Meet Petr Agha.

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• history
• Jan Palach
• Petr Blažek
• Soviet invasion

• Charles University archive, Vladimír Šigut

This August 11, Jan Palach would have been 70 years old. A student at Charles University in January 1969, 20-year-old Palach doused himself in gasoline and set himself alight at the top of Prague’s Wenceslas Square. He took the drastic decision to lay down his life as a form of protest – five months after Soviet tanks had rolled into Czechoslovakia.

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• coronavirus threat
• medicine
• alumini
• czexpats
• immunology

• René Volfík

The US-based immunologist Václav Větvička says there couldn’t have been more than five people on the plane when he recently traveled back to the Czech Republic. Because of Covid−19. As a scientist, Větvička has been outspoken about what we can – and should – be doing to stay safe. And really do we have any other choice before we get the vaccine?

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• alumni
• cultural anthropology
• prison culture
• tattoos
• body modification

• Michal Novotný

Cultural anthropologist Alena Lochmannová is a CU graduate and the author of Body behind Bars, a remarkable ethnological monograph examining tattoos and body modification in Czech prisons.

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Written by: Jan Velinger

Category: Unilife

• Humans of CU
• history
• Shakespeare
• Hilský
• books

• Vladimír Šigut

Martin Hilský is one of the country’s most prominent translators of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets into Czech. In 2011, his translations were published in a single volume The Complete Works (Dílo). Now, Academia has followed up with Shakespeare’s England: Portrait of an Age.