Reports

As Rector of the Czech Technical University in Prague, at the moment when a crisis bordering on a war has arisen in the east of Ukraine, I issue the following pronouncement:

CTU Rector Doc. Vojtěch Petráček welcomed a delegation of the Committee for Industry, Research and Energy from the European Union, led by its Chairman Cristian-Silviu Buşoi, on Tuesday, 22 February 2022. Na úvod rektor Petráček představil práci univerzity a úspěchy studentů a vysvětlil, jak probíhá spolupráce s ostatními univerzitami. At the beginning, Rector Petráček presented the work of the University and the achievements of the students and explained how the cooperation with other universities is taking place.

On February 17, the Faculty of Nuclear and Physical Engineering (FJFI) inaugurated the laboratory @PlasmaLab@CTU. At a time of rising energy prices, it is increasingly on course to find new, clean sources. One solution to the impending energy crisis may be thermonuclear fusion. In the south of France, scientists and designers have been building the world's first thermonuclear reactor for several years. The Czech Republic is also represented here. Among the entities involved is the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, which currently operates the only functional tokamak (fusion reactor) in the Czech Republic. Now, for students and scientists, the faculty has built a modern laboratory, PlasmaLab@CTU, for more than 23 million crowns.

Since 1 February,the Faculty of Transportation Technology has a new dean, Professor Ondřej Přibyl, and one of his first steps was the signing of an exclusive cooperation agreement between the faculty and the leading European university TU Berlin, DAI-Laboratory in the area of introducing autonomous mobility.

Visitors to the EXPO 2020 World Exhibition in Dubai could see the self-driving eForce Driverless DV.01 team formula assembled by students of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Czech Republic pavilion from 30 January to 13 February 2022.

Tereza Havránková, a student of the Project Management and Engineering master's programme, succeeded in the International Real Estate Challenge 2022 (IREC), which took place in Italy at the Politecnico di Milano from 10 to 21 January. The competition was sponsored by RICS - Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and four students from the Faculty of Civil Engineering of CTU participated in it.

For many years, the team of prof. Ing. Karel Roubík, Ph.D., from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, CTU (FBMI) has been studying respiration, gas exchange and the probability of survival of a person buried in avalanche snow. CTU The Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport of Charles University and the Czech Army also cooperate in the research.

An international team led by the Advanced Materials Group at the Department of Control Engineering at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering(Mengzhou Liao, Paolo Nicolini, Victor Claerbout, Tomáš Polcar) has taken advantage of the unique properties of so-called two-dimensional materials and measured the lowest coefficient of friction to date: one millionth. With such low friction, it would theoretically be possible to move an object weighing a thousand tonnes with just one hand. The work was published in the prestigious Nature Materials journal in January 2022.

Modern engineering is no longer based on mechanics alone. The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering applies current technological trends and the latest knowledge in robotics, automation, additive manufacturing and process control to teaching. It is unique in many technical areas. It has its own testing facilities for aircraft engines, provides homologation of new cars and develops innovative machining tools. It incorporates new technologies into its curricula. Students learn how machines can make life better, how they are improved and how they are designed using new discoveries and processes.

President Miloš Zeman appointed new rectors of eleven universities at Prague Castle on 26 January 2022. The current rector of the Czech Technical University doc. Vojtěch Petráček was among them, elected by the CTU Academic Senate as the person nominated for rector on 27 October 2021. Doc. Petráček's new and second term of office will begin on 1 February 2022 and will last until 2026.