Education

 

Science and research

 

Czech scientific successes

The Česká hlava Project was launched in 2002 with the aim to support scientific and engineering intelligence. There are several categories, of which the most prestigious is the National Prize of the Czech Government – “Česká hlava”.

Currently, the competition comprises the following categories:

• the Czech Government “Česká hlava” National Prize

• the Kapsch Invention Prize

• the Veolia Voda Patria Prize

• the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade Industry Prize

• the Česká hlava Foundation Fund Doctorandus Prize

• the Všeobecná zdravotní pojišťovna (VZP CR) Gaudeamus Prize

The Česká hlava is linked with the České hlavičky (Czech Little Heads) Contest, which is a project aimed at encouraging talented secondary and primary school students who are interested in research and sciences. The winning works are selected by a professional jury.

Every year, the announcement of Česká hlava winners is connected with a very important social event – a gala soirée attended by, among others, members of the government. The ceremony is broadcast in prime time by Czech Television, the main public Czech TV station.

In 2011, the most prestigious Czech Government Česká hlava National Prize was awarded to internationally recognised Czech cardiologist Petr Widimský from the Third Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague. He has greatly contributed to the mass introduction of coronary X7 angioplastics X7 in treatment of patients with acute coronary occlusion.

The “Invention” Prize went to Viliam Vatrt from the Military Geographic and Hydrometeorologic Office. His team has developed a theory of calculating the altitude of any locality on Earth from satellite data. Altitudes are presently measured against various sea levels. The Vatrt standardised height system may become the basis of a standardised global height system. For the purposes of the measurements and calculations, Viliam Vatrt introduced the constant value W0, which was accepted as the world constant.

The Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade Industry Prize was awarded to Babak Mahdian from the company ImageMetry, s.r.o. for development of the unique VerifEyed software, capable of recognising within tenths of seconds whether photographs or scans have been modified.

Information about other prizes and their bearers can be found here.