The Czech Academy of Sciences has attained excellent results in the current lists of the Nature Index, which monitors the count of high-quality articles in selected science journals. Compared with the previous year, the Academy experienced an increase of 18.2 %, gaining 19th place in the worldwide category of government institutions. 

The Visegrad Group (V4) Academies, along with the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, have issued a joint statement in which they have expressed their concerns regarding the ongoing transformation of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

Having determined the sequence of nucleotide base pairs that make up both human DNA and that of many other organisms, scientists have turned their attention to the functioning of genes and chromosomes and to how the genome works as a whole. Researchers studying genetics, cytogenetics, genomics, and genome organisation, as well as those engaged in applied sciences including biomedicine, shared new knowledge and findings in their fields at the 22^nd International Chromosome Conference held in the Czech capital of Prague on September 2–5, 2018.

A new way to control the electronic and magnetic properties of molecules has been discovered by scientists from the Regional Centre of Advanced Technologies and Materials (RCPTM) at Palacký University Olomouc, together with colleagues from the Institutes of Physics (FZU) and Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (IOCB) of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Commonly, a change in the electronic configuration of molecules can be induced by application of external stimuli, such as light, temperature, pressure, and magnetic field. Czech scientists have instead developed a revolutionary way to use weak non-covalent interactions of molecules with the surface of chemically modified graphene. This achievement has been published in the prestigious Nature Communications journal.

Representatives of the Academies of Sciences of the Visegrád Four (V4) countries, that is the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, held their annual meeting on 11–13 September 2018. This year they met at the invitation of the President of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) at the Liblice Castle in Central Bohemia.

Beginning in September 2018, caricatures of Czech scientists will appear on postcards and stamps of Czech Post (Česká pošta) through its service Pohlednice Online. Using the application, you can create and send a classic paper postcard directly from the Internet. These days, all these postcards will bear the cartoon image of Jiřina Čížková, an outstanding Czech physician and pioneer of children’s endocrinology.

The president of India Ram Nath Kovind and his Czech counterpart Miloš Zeman have signed three understandings of their countries’ mutual cooperation, two of which pertain to the area of science. After the signing which took place on Friday, September 7, 2018, both sides had a ceremonial lunch in the Vladislav Hall of the Prague Castle.

After 13 years of meticulous effort, 200 scientists from 20 countries managed to decode the genome of wheat, one of the most common crops in agriculture. The results, reached with a significant participation of experts from the Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, will facilitate a faster breeding of wheat varieties with better qualities, as well as help people with allergy to gluten.

On 20 August, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš visited the world's unique laser research centre – ELI Beamlines in Dolní Břežany. The centre is managed by the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The Prime Minister visited the centre along with leading representatives of the Czech Academy of Sciences: President Eva Zažímalová and Vice-Presidents Jan Řídký, Zdeněk Havlas and Pavel Baran. Discussions focused mainly on the operation of the centre. The Prime Minister was particularly interested in the long-term sustainability of ELI Beamlines and in its contribution to the international scientific community.

Following the Resolution of the Presidium of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences of 15 June 2018 and the open letter of ALLEA, both referring to the proposed amendment of the Law on the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Law on the 2019 state budget of Hungary, the Partner Academies of Sciences of the Visegrad Group Forum fully support the demand to withdraw the proposed amendments from voting and to allow for wider consultations with all relevant stakeholders, in particular with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.