General InformationThe Institute was newly constituted on 1st July 1998, after separation from the Institute of Landscape Ecology, AS CR (1993 - 1998) and resumes, by its scientific orientation, the former Institute of Vertebrate Zoology, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (1953 - 1986). Pursuant to Act No. 341/2005 Coll., the Institute became a public research institution after 1 January 2007. The Institutional Research Plan "Biodiversity and ecology of vertebrates: implications in conservation and sustainable management of natural populations" is aimed to yield original scientific knowledge of the biology of vertebrates with respect to genetic, species, and community diversity, population dynamics, interactions with environments in ecosystems, and associations with microbial pathogens dangerous for man and domestic animals. The results are relevant mainly to basic science, and bring new insights particularly in the fields of zoology, ecology, evolutionary and behavioural biology, and epidemiology. Our research is expected to contribute to forming of the environmental policy in the European scale, and its outputs may be transferable to environmental care and conservation also in some developing countries. The Institutional Research Plan is going to form a platform for an effective integration of the Institute in the European research area. Fellows of the Institute work in close collaboration with scholars and laboratories from various European and overseas institutions. They participate in many national and international projects, including six projects of the 6th Framework Program of the European Union, three programmes of the European Science Foundation, and other projects funded by NSF USA, British Ecological Society, Leakey Foundation, DAAD BRD, and Leverhulme Trust. Research grants and diverse contracting funding currently exceeds the institution's budget assigned from the state contribution in the frame of the Institutional Research Plan. The Institute publishes the international journal Folia Zoologica, and it is involved in organization of both national and international conferences. The Institute's scientists give lectures at Charles University in Prague, Masaryk University and Mendel Agriculture and Forestry University in Brno, University of West Bohemia in Plzeň, and Palacký University in Olomouc. They supervise over 100 MSc. and PhD students from 8 universities in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Special attention is paid to publicity of the Institute's scientific output, including papers, books and lectures or organizing the annual "Open Days". The Institute's huge collection of vertebrate skeletons numbers over 100, 000 items and the library includes thousands of journals and books, respectively. They are used as study material for both Czech and foreign students. |