At the last management meeting (3 July), the internal UP standard on the ombudsman or the ongoing nominations for awards such as the Czech Head or the Jan Opletal Awards were discussed. UP is currently starting to purchase energy for 2025 through the Czech-Moravian Commodity Exchange Kladno. Read the full summary (in Czech) (after logging in the UP Portal), we will prepare another one for you in 14 days. More detailed information will be subsequently available in the minutes of the management meeting in UPShare, as well as in the minutes of other bodies, in UP standards and documents and on other information platforms.

Why continue to attach importance to university rankings? This is what you will find at the beginning of the new issue of the newsletter of the Strategy and Quality Department of UP (in Czech). It also provides information about development and subsidy programmes of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Czech Republic or sustainable development. The theme of the issue (in Czech) is risk management. It introduces this issue to a wider readership and shows the advantages of implementing a functional risk management system in an organisation such as UP.

The Student Chamber of the Council of Universities awards the Jan Opletal Prizes (in Czech) to male and female students and recent graduates of secondary schools and universities for their activities within their studies, for student and civic engagement, volunteering and other publicly beneficial activities. Starting this year, anyone can nominate Jan Opletal Award winners! Take advantage of this opportunity and nominate someone from your area by mid-October using the form on the website (in Czech).

The UP Project Service (in Czech) assists all interested parties from the university with applying for grants and searching for funding opportunities. It provides project support across international, national and internal grant schemes. It also publishes a monthly e-newsletter with information on news and calls for projects. Read it to find suitable funding for your project or join research and training programmes. The current (7th) issue can be found on the UP Project Service website. (in Czech) For example, you will find out that it is possible to apply for the next round of projects in the field of advanced digital skills in the Digital Europe programme.

UP Science and Technology Park announces a new internal call within the TA ČR Sigma programme Proof of Concept (in Czech) which aims to provide support for the verification or development of innovative solutions and bringing commercially interesting ideas into practice. Solvers will receive support from UP Science and Technology Park managers, basic market and patent research, recommendations for further commercial development of the idea, the opportunity to put the idea into practice and valuable feedback. The new call focuses mainly on projects with the possibility of commercialisation through the establishment of a competence centre or spin-off companies. However, in the case of unique technologies, technologies for licensing can also be supported. The call is open to both researchers and PhD students. Applications can be submitted from 1 July to the end of August, more information on the call can be found here (in Czech).

The UP Library announces that the EBSCO Discovery Service will be upgraded on 6 August 2024 to offer a more intuitive user experience. A major new feature is the introduction of concept maps for visual representation of items and a personal user space My dashboard, which will replace the MyEBSCO personal mailbox. Users who have been storing alerts and documents in their own MyEBSCO folders are advised to back up this data elsewhere as it will not be automatically transferred! More information can be found here.

INVITATIONS

This year you will not be deprived of the open-air specials of the Pub Quiz, which Palacký University has been preparing for you for several years. But this time we will meet for the first time in the Letňák area. On Tuesday, 23 July, the Summer Quiz Special full of summer-related topics will be waiting for you. Teams of up to eight members can compete. The number of teams is limited by the capacity of Letňák (approx. 25 teams). The classic 56 questions and prizes from UPoint and our partners for the top 10 teams are waiting for you! Details and registration in the FB event. (in Czech)

Join the Olomouc Museum of Art in exploring the interventions of the SEFO 2024 Triennial in the public space of Olomouc with a stop at the UP Faculty of Law on Monday evening, 15 July. During the guided tour (in Czech) you will get to know the works of Slovak artist Ilona Németh: Handiwork (Horní nám.), Memorial to Women Who Cooked Salt (náměstí Národních hrdinů a hrdinek), Olomouc performance artist Vladimír Havlík: Marina Abramovičová performs "Justice" (Faculty of Law, 17. The meeting is at 18:00 on Horní náměstí near Caesar's Fountain at 18:00, duration approximately 2 hours, tram transfers. Admission is free.

NEW STANDARDS

• Quality Assurance Procedures and Methods at UP – Amendment No. 4

  This amendment to the internal standard, effective from 2 July 2024, (in Czech) is intended mainly for academic staff, students and other UP employees. It cancels selected quality indicators related to foreign mobility and counselling services at UP.

• Guideline on the determination of the level of indirect costs for the purposes of submitting projects under institutional support and under the submission of targeted support projects

  This internal standard, effective as of 8 July 2024, (in Czech) is intended primarily for UP employees involved in the preparation of project applications and secretaries. For the next period, it establishes the percentage of indirect costs of service operations to total costs at the UP level and the method for determining the percentage of indirect costs of service operations to total costs at the UP unit level.

COMPETITION

Summer competition for family tickets to the Fort Science

Even in the summer you will not be deprived of competitions prepared for you by the UP Marketing Department. This time you have the opportunity to compete for four free tickets to the Fort Science – UP interactive science centre. All you have to do is answer the competition question "What is the name of the new university beer that you will find in the UPoint from the end of June?" and four tickets could be yours.