Development of research activities is one of the priorities for the Faculty of Medicine

Application of research activities into the study plan, massive investments in facilities for scientific research, support of the creation of research teams and international mobility, research start-ups, competitions and conferences. What is the Faculty of Medicine doing for its development and stabilization?

Project LERCO

With a new Dean, Rastislav Maďar, in the head of the faculty and in the cooperation with the University Hospital Ostrava a plan for the development of research activities has been made whose aim is to create an attractive environment in Ostrava for top scientific teams in the field of medicine.

The main priority is to motivate students, graduates and academics to pursue research activity and to attract top researchers from abroad. For this purpose, a project LERCO was created whose aim is to connect the areas of basic research, applied research and the commercialization of research results. “The project aims to build 9 centres of excellent research of international format. For the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Ostrava in whose premises the new central building, worth 1,2 billion, of the LERCO project is going to be situated, the project means important development and stabilization of the science and research in the medium term plan,” explains Roman Hájek, the Vice-Rector for Strategy and Development UO.

In addition to the medium term plans, such as the project LERCO, the Faculty of Medicine has also short term ones. Recently, the Medical Research Centre has been established. Its goal is to create smaller research units that will cover the research activities in individual health and medical disciplines. The centre brings together researchers from the fields of information technology and artificial intelligence in medicine, neuroscience, epidemiology, oncology, surgery, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, nursing and others.

The University Hospital Ostrava has also found a way how to emphasise the importance of research at the Faculty of Medicine and together they created so called “Research start-ups” which should attract new researchers and research teams, primarily from abroad. In the form of a contest, both institutions choose together researchers who get the access to FM UO and UHO research labs together with the funding of 3 to 5 million Czech crowns for the period of 3 years.

The faculty knows that it is important to get the students interested in research already during their studies and, therefore, even the offer of various programs for students is being widened. Except for the most familiar Erasmus+ or Department-to-Department, there is also a mobility program VIA and VIA PhD.

Updated: 16. 12. 2020