Reports

The Czech Technical University in Prague has again significantly improved its position in the prestigious international QS World University Rankings. In the latest edition of the ranking, it ranked 403th, which is a significant shift of 29 places compared to last year's ranking.

Sixty thousand euros - half a million million crowns - for the development of applications and services based on artificial intelligence. This relatively significant amount is rather uncommonly offered by European researchers to start-ups and small and medium-sized companies. Innovative companies can submit their projects until the end of June. A total of sixteen companies will be selected, who will then have six months to develop their products. We asked Josef Šivic, an expert in computer vision, from the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics of the Czech Technical University in Prague (CIIRC ČVUT), who participated in the formulation of this grant call and will sit on a commission that will select the most successful adepts.

CTU employees and students took part in this year's nation-wide call, which took place from 1 to 31 May and motivated them to travel by bike, scooter, on foot or trot, under the company profile "CTU in Prague". For a whole month, teams of two to five employees and students recorded their common mileage, which they drove, ran or walked.

For his significant lifelong work in the field of medical biophysics and medical informatics and his many years of scientific and pedagogical activities, Prof. MUDr. Jozef Rosina, Ph.D., MBA, Dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Czech Technical University, was awarded a silver medal at a regular meeting of the Scientific Council of Charles University on 27 May 2021 Charles University.

The group of advanced materials, which operates within the Department of Control Engineering of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, is putting into operation a new state-of-the-art laboratory dominated by a device for preparing thin coatings by high-power pulsed magnetron sputtering. The team of Professor Tomáš Polcar will be looking for ideal materials for the modification of engineering parts. The "holy grail" is to find a coating that makes mechanical components virtually wear-free in various applications.

The Faculty of Biomedical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague (FBMI) has received accreditation for a new follow-up master's degree program in Applied Physiotherapy.

The Guide2Research evaluates the success of computer scientists based on their H-index, citations and the number of documents in the DBLP database collected by 10 May, 2021. The "Top Computer Scientists Ranking" includes all top computer scientists from the Czech Republic. The ten best domestic experts include four experts from the Czech Technical University in Prague, specifically from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and the Czech Institute of Informatics and Robotics of the Czech Technical University. The following universities from the Czech Republic are represented in the evaluation: the Czech Technical University in Prague (371st place), Charles University (460th place), the Brno University of Technology (547th place) and the University of Ostrava (641st place).

The Department of Information and Communication Technologies in Medicine of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering has joined a project entitled "National Program for the Recovery of the Population of the Czech Republic". Its goal is to motivate the population of the entire Czech Republic to move, and thus, as a result, to bring savings for health insurance companies, in the order of tens of billions per year. The project is expected to start on 1 September 2021, its duration is not limited yet.

Of today's robots, it can overcome obstacles the fastest even in difficult terrain, it can safely climb stairs, it can wade through mud and water. The four-legged autonomous SPOT robot from Boston Dynamics joined researchers from the CTU Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FEE) on 3 May to strengthen their chances in the finals of the prestigious DARPA Subterranean (SubT) Challenge, which will take place from 21 to 23 September 2021 in United States of America. In addition to participating in the competition, the robot from FEE CTU will be used in follow-up research in the field of autonomous movement in an environment that is inhabited by people.

Students of the Faculty of Information Technology have been participating in the activities of the American non-profit company Czech-American TV since 2009 through the outputs of their final theses to improve awareness of the Czech Republic and its regions. Thanks to this, CTU FIT was the only faculty in the Czech Republic to receive an award for long-term promotion of the Czech Republic. The award was presented to the faculty by the founder of the Czech-American TV, American producer John Honner.