The two-day meeting of the International Advisory Board of Charles University took place in Karolinum in days 4. - 5. 4. 2018. IAB meets regularly in Prague at a working meeting, mostly on the occasion of important anniversaries of Charles University. This year, it was the 670th anniversary of the foundation of Charles University.

The world's top scientists accepted the invitation of the Rector of Charles University, prof. Tomas Zima to participate in this meeting of his advisory body. Virologist Hans-Georg Kräusslich, French bohemist Marie-Elizabeth Ducreux, French mathematician Maria

J. Esteban, President of the German Physical Societyand former Director-General of CERN Rolf-Dieter Heuer, leading world neurologist Joseph Jankovic, Slovak diplomat and former President of the International Court of Justice in the Hague Peter Tomka and the Dutch economist and politician Jozef Mathias Ritzen.

"The aim of the International Advisory Board of CUNI, which was set up in 2014, is to help improve the quality of scientific and educational work in CUNI so that it can better compete internationally and reaffirm its role as an internationally respected research university," said Rector of CUNI Tomas Zima.

At the beginning of the meeting prof. Hans-Georg Krausslich was awarded by the Gold Medal of Charles University. Prof. Krausslich is Head of Department of Virology at the University Clinic of the Karl-Reprecht Universitaet in Heidelberg, our traditional partner university. He studied medicine in Munich, did host postdoc stay at State university of New York with Wckard Wimmer and worked later in German Cancer Research Center with prof. Harald zur Hausen (Nobel Prize laureate). Here he started to work on HIV life cycle and, specifically, on the molecular mechanisms of virus maturation and processing. He was later professor at Heinrich Pette Institute in Hamburg and now he is a full professor in Heidelberg. He published key papers on HIV maturation published in journals liek Science, PNAS, Nature or Journal of Virology (15 000 citations, h-factor 64) and belongs to the most reknown experts on HIV in Europe. Hans-Georg has a very close relationship to Czech Science, he served on several boards of Czech institutions and also had a large number of Czech PhD students and postdocs. He is also Visiting Professor of 1st Medical Faculty of our University and now he serves on our International Advisory Board. At certain stage he was the youngest full professor in Germany.

Leading world scientists - physicist prof. Rolf-Dieter Heuer and archeologist prof. Thomas Evan Levy received an honorary degree on the occasion of the celebrations of the 670th anniversary of the founding of Charles University and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic. The ceremony took place in the Magna Aula of the historic building of Karolinum on 6th April 2018 The title was awarded to both scientists for their outstanding lifelong scientific achievements and for a significant contribution to the development of research in collaboration with Charles University.

Prof. Rolf-Dieter Heuer studied physics at the Universität Stuttgart and defended his doctorate at the Heidelberg University, where he continued to work as a member of the academic team. Throughout his career, he’s been involved in structure and use of large detection systems to study interactions between electrons and positrons. From 1984-1998 he worked in senior positions at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva. In 2009 he became the Director-General of CERN and stayed in this position until 2015. Until 2009 he was the head the research department at the Universität Hamburg. Prof. Heuer received many honorary degrees and major awards, including the Charles University memorial medal.

Prof. Thomas Evan Levy is a world-renowned archaeologist at California University in San Diego. He was devoted to archeology since high school and it became his life passion.

Professor Levy has worked with the Czech Institute of Egyptology at the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University in the field of archaeology and contact between ancient Egypt and Syropalestine since the beginning of the 21st century. Levy’s research in the Wadi Feynan territory, where his expeditions discovered unique monuments dating to the period between 3000 BCE and 1000 BCE, has been a major contribution to this field. The Czech Institute of Egyptology carries out work on markedly similar topics and Czech archaeological research in Abusir also offers significant parallels for Levy’s work in the Near East in the field of international trade and also in relation to the genesis of the first complex societies between 3000 BCE and 1000 BCE.

“I collaborated with Prof. Heuer at CERN working on the LEP collider. Although each of us worked specifically on a different experiment, we jointly published a publication about the search for Higgs boson. The Higgs boson was discovered a decade later, when the LEP collider was replaced with a high-performance LHC. Experts from Charles University and other Czech institutions then participated in this project along with Prof. Heuer. He was the Director of CERN at that time and he was decidedly instrumental in the success of LHC. I also had an opportunity to collaborate with Prof. Heuer within the CERN Council. The Czech community of particle physicists knows him as an outstanding expert and a kind person” said Rupert Leitner, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics.

Professor Levy’s career is far from ending; however, the summary of his scientific expeditions, organised conferences and awards is very extensive. His bibliography includes numerous studies, monographs and edited collections covering practically every topic of importance on Near East archaeology, starting from the cultures of the period between 4000 BCE to 3000 BCE, through the topic of the Old Testament, to the Iron Age. Levy’s archaeological research and scientific work has significantly affected and continues to affect several directions of research and has had a fundamental impact on a generation of scientists.

“I’ve been collaborating with Prof. Levy for a long time. I had the opportunity to give lectures at the University of California, while Prof. Levy did the same at Charles University. Recently, our collaboration with Prof. Levy focused on the theory of the punctuated equilibrium and its application in such disciplines as archaeology, Egyptology, history, and last but not least, security studies,” said Miroslav Bárta, Director, Czech Institute of Egyptology.

International Advisory Board of Charles University: https://www.cuni.cz/UK-6792.html

Mgr. Václav Hájek

Press Secretary

Department of Public Affairs

Charles University

tel: +420 224 491 248