Domestic Policies: Our Advocacy Activities

In 2019, we paid increased attention to advocacy activities. Under the auspices of Prof Eva Zažímalová, President of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and Senator Miluše Horská, we organized a conference on parenthood and research in the Senate. The event was attended by nearly seventy people from the academic community and those at the head of key research institutions and state administration bodies. We have negotiated with the Governmental Office for Research, Development and Innovation (R&D) and, at our initiative, from January 2020 a new member of the R&D will be charged with the agenda of parenthood and research. We have intensified cooperation with active parents in science who are increasingly addressing us and – to our immense joy – also the responsible institutions, both individually and collectively.

We attended a number of meetings, drafted more than twenty opinions and suggestions and consulted various materials during the consultation process. We were involved in the preparation of an expert report for the chapter on education and research of the new Strategy of Equality of the Office of the Government and, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, prepared input material for the National Policy for Research, Development and Innovation 2021+. We intensified our cooperation with the Academy of Sciences, the R&D and the Office of the Government and continued our cooperation with the Ministry of Education set up in previous years. The very first outcome of these cooperations is the appointment of three new R&D members, Rut Bízková, Ilona Müllerová, and Jitka Ulrichová, who all have been dear collaborators of the Centre in the past