The CAS introduced new programs to support excellence, careers and ERC-in
Thu Jan 29 11:46:25 CET 2026
The Academy of the Future program will support both scientists coming from abroad and the scientific groups themselves. A new ERC incubator program is designed to help researchers across all institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences to prepare their individual high-quality project proposal to European Research Council and improve their success rate.
The new programs were presented at the headquarters of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) on Národní třída in Prague on January 21, 2026 at a seminar entitled News in the Support of Excellence and Careers in the Environment of the CAS. The opening speech was delivered by the President of the CAS, Prof. Radomír Pánek, who outlined the question of how excellence will be supported in the workplaces of the CAS in the coming period.
Prof. Petr Baldrian, a member of the Academy Council, who is also responsible for issues of excellence, stated which programs will continue at the CAS (The Academic Award, the Otto Wichterle Award, the Lumina queruntur Award and the Program for Supporting Promising Human Resources), with some of them undergoing partial adjustments in the near future.
The Academy of the Future program focuses on the following areas: support for internships, support for the return and acquisition of researchers from abroad, support for the development of excellent research groups, support for the development of excellent research groups, and support for the establishment of scientific incubators.
ERC Incubator Program
Another new program to support excellence at the CAS was introduced by Prof. Luděk Brož, a researcher from the Institute of Ethnology of the CAS. This program is called the ERC Incubator (ERC-in), which represents the support system of the Czech Academy of Sciences for applicants for grants from the European Research Council (ERC). Prof. Brož will coordinate this program.
More information about the ERC-in can be found on this website.
An article about the seminar where these programs were introduced can be found here.
Photo: Pavlína Černoch Jáchimová, SSČ AV ČR