Everyone is welcome on Friday and Saturday, November 22-23, 2019

• • University tour in English on Friday, November 22, at 10:00 a.m.
• Friday and Saturday, November 24-25, 2020

Prague, 2 OCT 2019 – At the University of Chemistry and Technology Prague (UCT), a prestigious new position called Chair – Medicinal Chemistry is being established for a leading foreign expert in drug discovery and development. It offers an unconventional form of collaboration with the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague), which will be supporting the new researcher with a grant of 7M CZK over a period of five years. That money will also assist in starting an excellent new research group at UCT.  

The agreement was signed by representatives of both institutions on 2 October 2019. The application process for an international competition will be opened this coming winter, with the selection committee comprising experts from UCT and IOCB Prague alongside two foreign scientists.  

For the first time, UCT Prague has been ranked among the 1,000 best universities in the world, rising to 355^th place, the second best position among Czech universities this year.

These excellent results in the QS World University Rankings 2020 was largely due to the small student-to-academic instructor ratio. Individual support for the educational process and the consequential involvement of students in research activities has finally carried UCT Prague to 47^th place in the world and first in the Czech Republic.

“We are pleased that student support at UCT Prague is also appreciated at the international level. But we are really talking about students and their individual growth, so the rankings results are just a pleasant consequence,” said Karel Melzoch, Rector of UCT Prague.

Contributing to this year’s ranking was the international environment of our university—for the Czech context, a relatively high number of students from abroad. In recent years, the university has also attracted international researchers who decided to pursue their careers at UCT Prague.

“Placing in the first 400 can help us attract more excellent students and researchers from abroad,” said Pavel Matějka, Vice-Rector for External Relations and Communication. “On the other hand, I don’t want to overstate one year’s ranking; we don’t know how the numbers will look like next time, particularly because we ranked in the first 1,000 for the first time,” added Matějka, who sees room for further improvement. “As a disciplinary-focused university, we will never have as much recognition as the larger universities. Yet solid work in science and research as well as collaboration with companies and institutions can push us even higher.”

This year was a good year for all Czech universities included in the rankings. Charles University broke through to the top 300 in the world, and all other Czech universities have improved. CTU Prague was ranked 498^th, Masaryk University 551-560^th, Palacký University Olomouc 601-650^th, and BUT Brno 651-700^th. New to the rankings were TU Liberec (751-800^th) as well as the the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CULS) and the University of Ostrava, both in the 810-1,000^th ranking band.

All rankings together with ranking methodology can be found online at: QS World University Rankings 2020.