Otto Wichterle Award presented to Institute of State and Law’s researcher Jakub Drápal
Otto Wichterle Award presented to Institute of State and Law's researcher Jakub Drápal
The Otto Wichterle Award is an honour given by the Czech Academy of Sciences to stimulate and encourage selected, exceptionally outstanding, promising young scientists at the Czech Academy of Sciences for their remarkable contributions to the advancement of scientific knowledge in a given area of science. In 2021, it was awarded to Jakub Drápal, a researcher from the Institute of State and Law.
Jakub is interested primarily in sentencing, especially its theoretical, empirical and comparative features. He has – among others – identified a specific category of offenders (multiple conviction offenders) or examined reasons given for sentences in post-communist Europe (as a first researcher in this region). He has already received two large grant from the Czech Grant Agency, both prior to obtaining his Ph.D.
Apart from studying sentencing Jakub actively popularizes his scientific findings and contributes to an evidence-based policy making. He is one of the main contributors to the website jaktrestame.cz (loosely translated as howdowepunish.cz, a website offering detailed information on sentences imposed for individual offenses) and following his research findings, a change in Czech criminal code was made.
