Development of Czech Science: The History of Czech Academy of Sciences

Development of Czech Science: The History of Czech Academy of Sciences is a comprehensive historical and institutional study of the development of Czech academic science and the changing role of the Academy as one of the country’s principal institutions of research, knowledge, and scientific memory. The book traces the evolution of organised scholarship in the Czech lands from early learned societies and the Royal Czech Society of Sciences through the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences to the establishment and development of the modern Czech Academy of Sciences.
Particular attention is given to the relationship between scientific development and political transformation, including the formation of national scientific institutions, the socialist reorganisation of research after 1952, the effects of ideological control and political repression, the transformation of the Academy after 1989, and its institutional renewal following the establishment of the Czech Republic in 1993. The study examines both continuity and rupture, showing how research institutes, scientific schools, professional communities, archives, infrastructures, and intellectual traditions were preserved, transformed, or redefined across different political regimes.
The book also explores the structure and governance of the contemporary Academy, the modernisation of research evaluation, European and international integration, open science, digitalisation, scientific careers, and the development of interdisciplinary and public-interest research. It considers major achievements in the natural sciences, mathematics, physics, chemistry, life sciences, biomedicine, humanities, and social sciences, while also addressing innovation, technology transfer, research infrastructures, and cooperation with universities, government, industry, and society. Extending its analysis to 2025, the book places the Czech Academy of Sciences within the broader history of European academic institutions and interprets it as a long-term carrier of scientific knowledge, institutional memory, cultural heritage, and national intellectual capacity. It presents the Academy not only as a research organisation, but also as an institution connecting historical inheritance with contemporary scientific excellence, innovation, public responsibility, and the strategic development of Czech science in the twenty-first century.