The past year 2011 was somewhat calmer for both our Institute and the entire Academy of Sciences (AS) than the previous two years. The crisis, started by incompetent decisions of the Council for Research, Development & Innovations of the Czech Government in 2009, which threatened to bring extremely serious consequences to the AS future, was largely settled down. I am glad that the worst expected scenarios were not fulfilled. For this, we should be grateful to the AS management, who successfully and relentlessly negotiated with politicians.
A significant event of the past year was the regular evaluation of the Academy institutes, which this time went down to the level of individual research groups. The IMG did not succeed very well – we remained in the large group of Institutes evaluated only as average. I think that this is partly due to technical shortcomings of the evaluation procedure, but mainly because several of our newly established research groups started literally from the scratch.
I believe that the past year also brought success in the area of our “raison d'etre” - good science. We again published more than hundred of scientific papers in prestigious international journals, and transferred a number of practically applicable products to our partner spin-off companies. It is encouraging that according to the objective scientometric criteria the quality of our scientific publications has been improving in the recent years.
Scientific life at our Institute was again highlighted by tens of scientific seminars and lectures given by our researchers and by our guests. Our new conference hall (bearing the name “Milan Hašek Auditorium” in honour of Milan Hašek, founder of our Institute) hosted several international conferences, organized by IMG but also other Academy Institutes of the campus.
In the past year we modernized our logo and the graphical identity of the Institute as a whole.
In the past year, several of the important Ministry of Education programmes, which for many years served as the main financial sources for a number of our research groups, were terminated (the programmes Research Centres 1M, Centres of Basic Research LC, NPVII). The new programmes to replace these past resources were unfortunately allotted much less funding. Also the Czech Science Foundation remains badly underfinanced. As a result of this situation most of our research groups will have to cope with much lower research budget than in the recent past.
Very importantly, the European Commission approved the BIOCEV Project within the programme Research & Development for Innovations (www.biocev.eu); the final step of approval by the Ministry of Education is expected by the end of January 2012.
At present, 23 research groups of the Institute are engaged in the topics of molecular and cellular biology, molecular immunology, functional genomics and bioinformatics, study of oncogenes, molecular biology of development, structural biology and mechanisms of receptor signalling. Very positive for the Institute is the presence of about 80 doctoral students and 50 undergraduates. A number of our scientists actively work as university teachers (e.g. seven as professors and seven as associate professors; we provide 27 semestral courses at the Universities).
Although we consider basic research as the priority area of the Institute activity, with publications in prestigious international journals as its main output, valuable applied research with particular practical applications is also being developed at our Institute. Also in this area the Institute has achieved significant success, with several well-prospering spin-off companies established in the past years as a result – these companies maintain close collaboration with our research groups.
The high standing of the Institute researchers is testified by a number of recent awards and prizes, including the National Award of the Government of the Czech Republic “Czech Brains” awarded to Professor Jan Svoboda in 2010, the Prize of the Academy of Sciences to the team of Professor Jiří Bartek (2011). Professor Jiří Forejt is holder of the prestigious five-year Academy award Premium Academiae since 2008; two Institute researchers (Assoc. Prof. Radislav Sedláček and Dr. Petr Svoboda) are awardees of the five-year J.E. Purkynje Fellowship since 2008, Dr. Libor Macůrek was awarded the Otto Wichterle fellowship in 2011. Three Institute scientists (Prof. J. Svoboda, Prof. V. Pačes and Prof. J. Forejt) are elected members of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic. The Institute represents the Czech Republic in several leading scientific organizations and institutions, including the European Molecular Biology Conference (EMBC), the European Science Foundation (ESF), and the NATO Steering Group of the Science for Peace programme. Four Institute scientists (Prof. J. Bártek, Prof. J. Svoboda, Prof. V. Pačes and Prof. J. Forejt) are elected EMBO members. IMG scientists serve on 35 Editorial Boards of scientific journals.
The scientists of the Institute of Molecular Genetics are very open to co-operation with the media in popularizing scientific results and explaining the importance of science in general and molecular genetics in particular (see e.g. IMG in media).
In our plans for the next year, of crucial importance will be launching the BIOCEV Project within the programme Research & Development for Innovations in Vestec (www.biocev.eu). In 2012, we plan to finish renovation of building V on the Krč campus and reconstruction of our breeding facility in Koleč.
Since the beginning of 2012 the newly elected IMG Council will become operational and later this year the Director will be appointed for the next five-year term.
I am convinced that despite the present financial problems, the Institute of Molecular Genetics can hope for a good future, as a continuation of the famous past represented by the names of Milan Hašek, Jan Svoboda, and a number of others.
I wish to thank cordially all Institute employees for their work in the past year and hope that a lot of success awaits us in the coming year 2012.
