Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) successfully organised the Ronaldo+ platform meeting, which took place at the International Hotel in Prague 6. Mr. Petr Šedivý, Head of the Structural Funds Department at CTU, who organised the event with his team, evaluates the meeting as very successful: "We are pleased that a large number of participants came, even at a very exposed time when schools are dealing with a large agenda related to the end of the academic year. For us, it was a premiere to organise an event of this format and I am glad that everything went smoothly. I hope that the guests, in addition to the demanding professional programme, had the opportunity to enjoy pre-Christmas Prague."
Ronaldo+ is a regular meeting of project managers from all public universities in the Czech Republic. It was originally established as a centralized development project (CRP Ronaldo) supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. Although the funding for the CRP project was exhausted and the project was to be terminated, the universities see the agenda of exchanging experiences in the field of development and research projects as essential and therefore the cooperation within the Ronaldo platform continues. The meetings, which are held four times a year and hosted by the universities on a rotating basis, serve to share good practice in projects, to deepen collaboration between the universities' project units and, more recently, to promote the universities' common interests towards the funders.
In addition to project managers, the event is also attended by finance managers, concept officers and heads of project offices of universities. Guests from grant providers are also invited, which allows for a constructive discussion on upcoming calls and problems in project administration.
The expert programme of the event and guest experts are coordinated by Jitka Bat'ková, Executive Director of the Rector's Office of Charles University, and David Póč, Bursar of Masaryk University.
Veronika Kramaříková, Vice-Rector for Development and Strategy of CTU, gave the opening speech on behalf of the organizers, welcomed the participants, appreciated the cooperation between universities, emphasized the international grant schemes that need to be penetrated, and wished the participants good luck and a peaceful Christmas holidays. Petr Šedivý, Head of the Department of Structural Funds of CTU, welcomed the participants.
David Póč, on behalf of the Ronaldo+ platform, opened the meeting by presenting the programme of the two-day meeting and thanking the participants for their activity and cooperation in addressing the current issues. Jitka Batkova, who closed the meeting on Friday, expressed her wish to continue this constructive cooperation across universities and to maintain the regularity of the meetings.
Thursday morning's programme was filled with topics of strategic development of universities: Programme for Supporting Strategic Management (PPSŘ) and Programme for Supporting the Development of Higher Education (PPRVOŠ), which were presented by Vojtěch Tomášek, Director of the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. In the afternoon, current topics from the National Recovery Plan - project closure and final reports under the NPO Call 3.2.1 Transformation and implementation of projects from NPO Call 7.4 Supporting green skills and sustainability in higher education were presented. On behalf of the NPO, 3 representatives of the Ministry, Eva Heroldová, Gabriela Bašusová and Petra Olivová accepted the invitation. At the end of the expert programme of the first day, news from the environment of implementation of NPOs and ESIF for the field of higher education were discussed. A meeting of Vice-Chancellors for Development and Strategy was held in parallel at the International Hotel on the first day.
Participants had the opportunity to take part in the accompanying programme and could choose from three options: the Water Management Experimental Centre at Faculty of Civil Engineering of Czech Technical University, Testbed for Industry 4.0 operating at the Czech Institute of Robotics and Cybernetics or the exhibition of nativity scenes in the Bethlehem Chapel.
The second day of the meeting focused on the administration of ESIF projects in the OP JAK, where Stanislav Tvaroh, Director of the Regional Education Projects Administration Department of the Ministry, gave a speech. Subsequently, two parallel workshops were held, one focused on the issue of documents for start-up/implementation reports and payment requests in OP JAK, the other on methodological set-up and implementation of projects in the Operational Programme Fair Transformation.
At the end of the second day, the representatives of Tomas Bata University in Zlín invited the other participants to the next meeting of the Ronaldo platform, which will take place in Zlín on 27-28 March 2025.