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Nataliya Kazachková lost both her university office and home. The bombing of Kharkiv turned her life upside down, but the tenacious scientist did not give up. Together with her parents and younger daughter she managed to leave Ukraine, and thanks to the programme of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic “Researchers at Risk Fellowships - Ukraine”, since April she has been working at the Institute of Physics.

Unique Cherenkov telescopes have successfully been installed at the Ondřejov Observatory near Prague. There are two telescopes at the site, which are now the largest optical telescopes in the Czech Republic. They have been developed in the frame of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory, and evaluated as performing telescopes in the high energy region above 1 TeV.

“We had the opportunity to invest time into interdisciplinary research, knowing that if everything works according to plan, we‘ll rank among the best. But an overarching element of our research remains to be optics – we’ve never run away from it,” says Alexandr Dejneka, the Optics Division Head, in an interview. 

Minister Gazdík had the opportunity to talk to the representatives of ELI research teams in the laser and experimental halls. The head of the centre, Roman Hvězda, informed minister Gazdík about the history of the construction and the commissioning of unique research technologies and about current activities for research users.

The atomically sharp domain walls that were discovered by an international team led by researchers from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, might considerably improve the research of ulta-fast memory devices made from antiferromagnetic materials. 

A total of 11 postdoctoral researchers have headed back from abroad to Czechia as grant holders of the Horizon Europe’s “Excellent Science” programme. Three of the researchers who will be developing their career path at the Institute of Physics have received a total of 498 836,16 Euros awarded to them as part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships in order to finance their research in physics. In addition to this, the FZU has received an ERA Postdoctoral Fellowship.

The first year of the Science Challenge educational competition for teams of gifted high school students took place in the ELI Beamlines and HiLASE laser centres on February 18-19. During the 24-hour scientific marathon, the first place in the challenging competition was awarded to the Nafta - Anime team.

On Wednesday, February 23, the Cherenkov telescope SST-1M recorded its first events initiated by high-energy particles (of hadronic origin or originating from gamma-rays). Two telescopes are gradually being built at the Ondřejov Observatory since 2021. Among the key institutions involved in those activities are Université de Genève, Instytut Fizyki Jądrowej PAN, Krakow and the Czech Academy of Sciences.