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The Otto Wichterle Award, bestowed since 2002, comes with a stipend of CZK 330,000 spread over three years. The accolade, recognizing outstanding researchers under the age of 35, has already been granted to 565 laureates. On 24 June 2026, another twenty-three joined their ranks. This year’s recipients include experts in exoplanets, photovoltaic materials, concrete, and plasma, as well as diabetes, drought, social psychology, and literature in exile.

Over the past few decades, the golden jackal has been pushing into parts of Europe where it had never been recorded before. An international study, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, outlines the reasons why. According to our researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the CAS, who contributed to the study, the expansion is driven by a combination of climate change, landscape modification, and the long-term decline of large predators, especially wolves.

People who speak multiple languages tend to be more flexible – and their brains resist dementia for longer. The mechanisms behind multilingualism are being studied by Kateřina Chládková and her team at the Institute of Psychology of the CAS. In the 1/2026 issue of A / Magazine, the researcher also explained why it’s worth taking inspiration from infants and toddlers when learning languages.

A total of 408 teams from 52 CAS institutes and 3,841 research outputs – those were the parameters of a large-scale evaluation of the CAS research institutes recently completed by the Czech Academy of Sciences in collaboration with nearly two thousand international experts. How did the evaluation unfold, and what did it reveal? Patrik Španěl from the Academy Council of the CAS explains below.

At first glance, it looks like a cross between a spider and a trilobite. However, the unassuming fossil unearthed in Prague during the construction of Metro Line D represents an entirely new species of arthropod. This ancient creature lived roughly 448 million years ago. Its closest known relative comes from southern Africa. The discovery is reshaping our understanding of how these animals were distributed and offering new insights into life at the time of the first mass extinction.

Fire has returned to Bohemian Switzerland National Park, just years after the devastating wildfire in 2022. Although last week’s flames have now been safely extinguished, they have reignited urgent calls for action to reduce the growing risk of wildfires in the coming years. Europe’s academic community has laid out key findings and demands for policymakers. The real question isn’t how quickly a blaze can be put out, but how we can prepare our landscapes so they don’t ignite so easily in the first place.

Cameras at the ready! Photogenic Science returns with its 13th edition of the popular photo contest for which CAS staff can capture remarkable moments from their research. In addition to the main category, entries can also be submitted to a secondary category – this year’s theme is Scientists in Action – until 15 June 2026.

The Strategy AV21 supports research that positively impacts people’s lives. To this end, it has connected institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences, universities, industrial partners, and the state and public sectors for over a decade. Its new research programs The Power of Objects: Materiality Between the Past and the Future, Global Biodiversity Crisis: Risks and Opportunities for Human Society, and Infectious Diseases: New Targets and Strategies were introduced at a meeting of coordinators on 9 April 2026.

The Czech Academy of Sciences aims to fulfill its mission of conducting top research and producing results that benefit society even more consistently, defining thirteen strategic priorities to support this effort. The Academy Assembly of the CAS adopted them at its 67th session on 14 April 2026, held at the National House Vinohrady in Prague, which traditionally hosted representatives of both science and politics. Among other topics, participants also addressed the funding of science and research.

The development of drugs for cancer treatment, research into thermonuclear fusion, and global issues in sociocultural anthropology represent vastly different fields. But they share one thing in common. All are being tackled by researchers from the Czech Academy of Sciences. On 1 April 2026, the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, took a closer look at their work, accepting an invitation to visit three CAS institutes. His first stop was the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS, followed by the Institute of Ethnology of the CAS, and he concluded his tour at the Institute of Plasma Physics of the CAS.