This report gives an overview of
activities of the Institute of Botany in 1994 - 1997. During this
period, increased financing through grant agencies continued but
became more diverse and the amount of money received stabilized in
comparison with the previous two or three years. The main financial
sources were direct budget from the Academy of Sciences for
salaries and reparations, research money, obtained mainly from the
Grant Agency of the Czech Republic and the Grant Agency of the
Academy of Sciences and important support was also obtained from
Ministry of Environment and other additional sources. All research
groups in the Institute received financial support and were thus
able to continue the research. For this reason, we do not refer
directly to individual research grants, but to the individual
research topics, usually supported by more than one grant during
the long periods involving pilot studies, material collection and
direct research.
Together with the stabilization of
financial sources, the development of the Institute continued
slowly at Průhonice and a new experimental garden was established
to replace an older one, which was restituted. A new department was
established in Brno (Dept. of Ecotoxicology). The cooperation with
universities continued with high involvement in teaching activities
and the supervision of theses being a common activity. Two labs
were established: one at Průhonice devoted to plant poptableation
biology (together with the Factablety of Sciences, Charles
University), the second in Brno devoted to ecotoxicology (Factablety
of Sciences, Masaryk University).
Most of the activities mentioned
were strongly influenced by the previous director Jan Štěpánek who
took responsibility for the Institute at a time of major economic
and other changes. His success is borne out by the fact that the
Institute survived well during this period - a view held not only
by me but also by the International Evaluation Committee in
December 1994.
