On October 28, 2023, President Petr Pavel awarded astrophysicist Jiří Grygar of the Institute of Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, the Medal of Merit 1st class for services to the state in the field of science.
"The greatest wealth of the Czech Republic is our people," said President Pavel during the 105th celebration of the founding of the republic and continued: "They are students at universities, entrepreneurs, innovators, as well as doctors and health professionals, soldiers and police officers, teachers at all levels and those who earn their living with their own hands. In short, everyone who approaches what they do with positivity and honesty. If we can develop this human wealth in the right way, we have the potential to play in the first league."
Jiří Grygar by the first detectors in the Argentinian pampas
In 1980, RNDr. Jiří Grygar, CSc., joined the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Řež and then moved his workplace to Ládví, where he now works at the Department of Astroparticle Physics.
He is undoubtedly one of the best-known Czech scientists in terms of media interest. In 2021, Jiří Grygar received a silver medal from the President of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Miloš Vystrčil. In 1994 he received the Award of the Czech Academy of Sciences and in 1996 he was awarded the distinguished UNESCO Kalinga Prize for his outstanding contribution to the popularisation of science.
In the 1980s, he co-authored and presented a television series called Okna vesmíru dokořán (Windows of the Universe Wide Open).