One is from Spain, the other from Slovakia, but both develop their research activities in the Czech Republic. What they believe to be of key importance is both international collaboration and sharing of know-how, and systematic financing that would enable access to state-of-the-art equipment, support excellence in research, and deliver competitive salaries. At the same time, they both believe that NICR is contributing to all these areas and helps elevate cancer research in Czechia to internationally competitive level.
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Why did you decide to do science in the Czech Republic?
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What should be done to make sure that scientists come to Czechia primarily for science?
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How could or does NICR contribute to this?
Meritxell Alberich Jordà
Prague node, Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Focus on haematooncology
- Some time ago, we lived with my partner in Boston, which is a great place for research but far from our families. My partner is Czech and I am from Barcelona, so we decided to look for a job in Europe and focused on our two native lands. At that time, the Czech ministry of education announced a call for researchers who live abroad but would like to return to Czechia. This initiative was called Návrat, meaning ‘Return’. My partner applied and was chosen. The year after, I followed him and also applied and was also selected. This had significantly influenced our career and enabled us to establish our research in the Czech Republic. It was great that although I was not, technically speaking, returning (because I am not Czech) I could apply.
- Three equally important measures should be introduced in order to attract scientists to Czechia. To secure access to top-notch facilities and state-of-the-art equipment, to support and boost excellence in research, and to offer competitive salaries and research financing. I believe that the existence of NICR significantly contributes to all these areas but in order to attract scientists from abroad, one would need more than just one initiative.
- NICR gives me the opportunity to do research at an internationally competitive level. The key issue is financing, which allowed me to attract to my team excellent scientists, both Czech and from abroad. Aside from that, the financial resources helped me secure the basic, although costly, research materials and services needed to maintain excellence. It would be great if NICR was able to continue its support of excellent research and could offer follow-up financing.
Antónia Mikulová
Brno node, Faulty of Science, Masaryk University
Postgraduate student focused on haematooncology, immunology and bioinformatics
- My decision was influenced by a combination of several factors. Since I had spent most of my studies at the Masaryk University in Brno, I already had a base there. Also, staying in Brno meant I remained to live relatively close to my family. However, the final decision was made after I got offered a Ph.D. position in Brno, in one of the extraordinary research groups with great perspective (led by Professor Vítězslav Bryja). I felt that in this lab, I will not only be able to work on projects that interest me but to also learn a lot about the process of introducing new therapeutic agents into clinical practice. That was an opportunity I found extremely tempting. Moreover, thanks to the large number of international collaborations that this team has, I also knew that getting an international experience from an internship abroad (which is something I really wanted to do) would not be a problem in this group.
- One of the crucial things I have learned so far is that science is mainly about collaboration. Therefore, I believe that collaboration with foreign research teams and sharing the know-how, meaning the biological or technical knowledge, could help Czech science to reach the world-class level. Moreover, I believe that well established international collaborations could help to attract not only the international grants but also the scientists from abroad to Czechia.
- I believe that NICR improves the situation of Czech science by linking individual research groups and facilitating communication among teams that work on similar research topics. Of course, NICR also helps to improve the financial situation of the scientists in Czechia who can thus include experiments utilising the most advanced technologies to their research projects. Thanks to this, it is then easier for the scientists to compete with the international research.