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One of Medek’s fishponds near the Czech town of Kroměříž is a place where the invasive black bullhead catfish reigns beneath the surface. It is a serious threat to native fish and its presence needs to be carefully monitored and controlled. And that’s what researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the Czech Academy of Sciences and other institutions are working on. The photo story was first published in the 3/2025 Czech issue of A / Magazine.

Science doesn’t always have to mean endless tinkering in the lab. Sometimes it’s a rollercoaster full of twists and loops – like when an ancient fossil turns up, there’s a new breakthrough in technology, or someone simply takes a fresh look at an old problem. We picked out a few recent (re)discoveries to showcase in the A / Easy magazine, published by the Czech Academy of Sciences.

Scientists from the Czech Academy of Sciences have gained acclaim in the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science program and have placed on the Forbes “Top Women in Science” list. One of the L’Oréal-UNESCO Award laureates is Pavlína Modlitbová from the Institute of Scientific Instruments of the CAS, and among this year’s top 25 women scientists, according to Forbes, six are researchers from various CAS institutes.

Climate change, the fragility of financial systems, and other pressing issues were at the center of discussions between young researchers and Nobel Prize laureates in economics at a meeting held from 26 to 30 August 2025 in Lindau, Germany. What impressed Clara Sievert from CERGE-EI, a joint workplace of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Charles University, in her conversations with the laureates?

The days of the “IT crowd” banished to the basement are long gone. Take bioinformaticians, for example – they’ve moved up to the top floors and become an integral part of research teams. They’re well versed in AI tools and know their way around data. “Thanks to them, we’re able to better predict and tackle threats like climate change or global epidemics such as COVID-19,” says Jiří Vondrášek from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS, who heads the Czech branch of the ELIXIR infrastructure for bioinformatics.

Since April, the trio of vice-presidents of the Czech Academy of Sciences for the 2025–2029 term has comprised Ilona Müllerová, Ondřej Beránek, and Miroslava Anděrová. What are their priorities in the research areas they coordinate? And how do they believe the Academy can enhance its standing and more effectively support early-career researchers?

On Friday, 12 September 2025, a public hearing titled “Making Sense of Open Science” will take place in Prague. The full-day event, held under the auspices of the President of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Scientific Council of the Czech Academy of Sciences and organized within the OP JAK AMULET project, will focus on Open Science—one of the key pillars of current European science policy and beyond. The hearing will explore pressing topics such as data management, publishing regimes, and public engagement in science. The program will feature panel discussions, interactive workshops, and the presentation of findings from a recent sociological study. The event is intended for academics, policymakers, representatives of major Czech scientific institutions, and interested members of the public.

Launched in 2022, the European project SUNER-C started with a clear mission: to grow a community and eco-system dedicated to solar fuels and chemicals in Europe. J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences was invited to this initiative as the only institution from the Czech Republic. It participated in formulating the professional focus of projects and creating a network of European collaborations.

What happens to public trust when a pandemic hits? Why do some people turn away from health authorities while others become more compliant? In the new CERGE-EI Working Paper titled “Pandemics’ Backlash: The Effects of the 1918 Influenza on Health Attitudes and Behavior,” Christian Ochsner, economist and Assistant Professor at CERGE-EI (the joint workplace of Charles University and the Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences) explores the long-term effects of pandemic mortality on public health-policy skepticism—using a surprising historical case: The Spanish flu pandemic.

They observe the landscape from an altitude of around 300 meters. And it’s precisely this vantage point that allows aerial archaeologists to read what occurred on the ground – sometimes thousands of years ago – and to detect hidden structures. All you need is an eye for seemingly minor details, like subtle differences in the color or height of grain crops. We joined Martin Gojda from the Institute of Archaeology of the CAS, Prague, on an expedition from Roudnice nad Labem Airport in June 2024, as part of the event Archeologické léto (Summer of Archaeology). This photo story first appeared in the 1/2025 issue of A / Magazine, published by the Czech Academy of Sciences.