The Assembly of the Council of Higher Education Institutions has elected Tomáš Kašparovský, Dean of Masaryk University’s Faculty of Science, as its new chairperson for the period 2024 to 2026. He received 163 out of a total of 189 votes.
During the new term of office, Michaela Hrubá (UJEP), Daniela Jobertová (AMU), Petr Just (MUP), Jiří Langer (UPOL), Jiří Skládanka (MENDELU) and František Zahálka (UK) will also join Tomáš in the innermost leadership of the Council. The last member of the Executive Board was Michal Farník, who automatically became vice-chairperson of the Council of Higher Education Institutions due to his position as chairperson of the Student Chamber.
“I consider it important that the Council of Higher Education Institutions should focus primarily on addressing the underfunding of higher education and involvement in the process of preparing national legislation and all strategic and conceptual documents related to the activities of higher education institutions. In the field of education, the Council of Higher Education Institutions should focus on more intensive cooperation with the National Accreditation Office for Higher Education (NAÚ) to make sure that the processes ensuring quality in education are as efficient and transparent as possible, without any unnecessary administrative burden for those same higher education institutions. Another important topic is the effective electronification of systems”, said Chairperson Tomáš Kašparovský, while outlining his vision for the near future.
The Council of Higher Education Institutions, pursuant to § 92 of Act No. 111/1998 Coll. (Act on Universities) is composed of members of the academic community delegated by their representative academic bodies and is one of two bodies representing universities, the second consisting of university representatives (Rectors).
The Minister of Education discusses all proposals and measures that have a significant impact on universities with these bodies. These might include, for example, proposals for changes to legal regulations relating to education, standards for accreditation, admissions procedures and the NAÚ statute. Representatives of the Council of Higher Education Institutions also have specific tasks, including submitting proposals for the appointment of members of the NAÚ Council, submitting proposals for registering persons in the list of NAÚ evaluators and the right to submit proposals to the Ministry regarding the content and implementation of legislation issued pursuant to this Act. In this way, the representatives actively contribute to the development of the higher education sector and ensure the quality of tertiary education in the Czech Republic.
Honorary doctorates were awarded, by decision of the Scientific Council of Masaryk University, to Professor Thomas Robert Cech, who made a significant contribution to the formation of the field of biological sciences; and Professor Peter Wolfram Michor, who made a significant contribution to the development of mathematics.
A team of botanists has revealed significant changes in the distribution of species in the Czech flora. Their study, published in the international scientific journal Biological Conservation, analyzed the decline and increase of individual plant species in the Czech Republic since 1960.
