"The Learned Society of the Czech Republic is fully aware of the fundamental importance of the rapidly developing field of artificial intelligence and machine learning for society, and thus appreciates that Jiří Matas has become a member," said Dr. Ivo Starý from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS, who also serves as the Scientific Secretary of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic.
"Jiří Matas has demonstrated his extraordinary excellence in the field of artificial intelligence research on an international scale. He is an outstanding expert in the field of technical sciences and an unmissable scientific personality. His subject of interest is basic and applied research on computer vision and machine learning with emphasis on object recognition and retrieval, representation learning, tracking, text recognition and minimal problems in computer vision. Jiří Matas has published more than 250 original papers in peer-reviewed journals and conferences, and the international acclaim for his work is extraordinary: he is one of the most cited Czech scientists," Dr. Ivo Starý summarized the reasons for the acceptance of Prof. Jiří Matas. He also recalled that Jiří Matas, as part of his teaching activities, has consistently devoted himself to the education of students, some of whom have achieved outstanding results under his guidance.
Prof. Jiří Matas is the highest ranked computer scientist in the Czech Republic according to the international ranking of Research.com, which evaluates the success of scientists in the field of computer science (Computer Science) based on their H-index, citations and the number of papers collected until 6 December 2021. In addition, the group of scientists led by him makes a major contribution to the fact that in the field of Computer Vision, researchers from FEL CTU and CIIRC CTU rank among the top four European institutions in the CSRankings scientific results for the period 2018 to 2021. CSRankings is a ranking of the best institutions in computer science worldwide based on an exact evaluation of publications in top scientific conferences.
"I expect that thanks to the fact that the Learned Society brings together excellent scientists from a wide range of disciplines, my membership will inspire and motivate me to interdisciplinary scientific activities," said Prof. Jiří Matas, who in addition to his scientific and pedagogical activities at his home department of cybernetics serves as Vice Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of CTU for Development.
Currently, the Learned Society of the Czech Republic has 110 full members, 52 foreign members and 16 emeritus members. Its statutes state that the number of full members of the Society shall not exceed one hundred and eleven. The number of foreign and emeritus members is not limited. Membership shall be conditional upon significant and creative contribution to science and moral integrity.
The main goal of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic is to support the free cultivation of science and the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Czech science lost its freely elected scientific representation in 1952, as represented by members of the Royal Czech Society of Sciences (founded in the late 18th century) or members of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts (founded in 1890). Although many of them went on to become academicians or corresponding members of the newly established Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, this was a body with a distinctly political mission that ceased to exist after 1989. The efforts of leading Czech scientists, led by Prof. Otto Wichterle, led to the establishment of the Learned Society in 1994 as a new organisation representing Czech science, built on its best traditions. The Learned Society of the Czech Republic was established on 10 May 1994 at a festive meeting in the Patriotic Hall of the Karolinum building in Prague.