News

Iva Synková, a junior scientist at the Department of Neutron and Ion Methods of the NPI and mother of five children, has received the prestigious Martina Roeselová Memorial Fellowship. This support is awarded by the IOCB Tech Foundation.

On December 5, as part of the Fyzikální čtvrtky series, a lecture by Prof. Ondřej Lebeda on the topic "Radionuclides from Physics to Medicine and Back" was held at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague. Almost a hundred listeners learned about the history, present and future of the use of radionuclides in medicine and physics.

On 19 November 2024, the Director of the NPI, Ondřej Svoboda, and the Chairman of the NPI Board, Vladimír Wagner, participated in the ceremonial presentation of the NuPECC Long Range Plan 2024 for European Nuclear Physics at the University Foundation in Brussels. The ceremony was attended by prominent representatives of European institutions involved in nuclear physics, as well as representatives of the European Commission, funding agencies and partner organisations. NuPECC - the Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee - is an expert committee of the European Science Foundation. The main objective of NuPECC is to develop the strategy for European collaboration in nuclear science and to promote nuclear physics and its transdisciplinary use in applications as society benefit.

The involvement of the Czech Republic in the newly built FAIR accelerator laboratory in Germany is increasing. After a demanding mathematical modelling and verification of the seismic resistance requirement, a special support structure - a platform for a 100-tonne load - has been certified. This platform is part of the Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) hall.

On 19 November 2024, Minister of Education, Youth and Sports Mikuláš Bek awarded university students, teachers and scientists at the Liechtenstein Palace. Among the awardees was our junior researcher Mgr. Josef Novák, who is also a student of the doctoral programme in Applied Ion Technology at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University. Mgr. Novák's supervisor is Mgr. Petr Malinský, Ph.D. from DNIM.

The Nuclear Physics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences is celebrating an exceptional success. This year, three of its scientists won the prestigious Josef Hlávka Award, which is awarded annually by the Josef, Marie and Zdeňka Hlávka Foundation. The laureates, at the suggestion of the institute's management, were Veronika Brychová, Zuzana Golec Mírová (both DRD) and Eva Štěpanovská (DNIM). The awards were presented during a ceremony in the representative premises of the Lužany Chateau on Saturday, November 16, 2024.

On November 15, a delegation of scientists from Japan visited the Nuclear Physics Institute. All members of the mission, led by Prof. Dr. Kazuhiko Mase from KEK (High Energy Accelerator Research Organization), work in the field of vacuum physics, accelerators, mass spectrometers or vacuum pumps. After meeting with the management of the NPI, the guests toured the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory (MILEA facility) and also the Tandetron Laboratory.

The Nuclear Physics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (NPI) effectively utilizes the Open Science program to identify and support young talents in nuclear and particle physics. On November 7–8, the final conference showcased high school students, among others, who worked on scientific projects throughout the year under the guidance of researchers from the Department of Theoretical Physics (DTP) at NPI.

At least eleven distinct species have been identified within what was previously classified as the spring fungus Sarcosphaera coronaria. The discovery was made by researchers from the Nuclear Physics Institute, the Institute of Geology, and the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with other research institutions and amateur mycologists from the Czech Republic and the USA. Their findings, which include the description of two entirely new species, was made possible by measuring the arsenic content using neutron activation analysis. The breakthrough study on the rare fungus was published in Mycological Progress.

A total of three NPI workplaces participated in the Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences, which ran from November 4 to 10, 2024. For three days, a functional civil protection shelter was accessible in the underground premises Department of the Radiation Dosimetry of the NPI on the grounds of Bulovka Hospital in Prague; on Friday and Saturday, visitors could see two important nuclear facilities in the area in Řež.

RIANA is now accepting research proposals: academic researchers can apply for free access to at least 2 infrastructures from 69 leading nanoscience facilities across 22 European countries.

The Department of Heavy Ion Physics of the NPI (DHIP) has a new head. Dr Filip Křížek has been appointed to this position from 1 October 2024. The selection of the new head was carried out through an internal call in which Dr. Křížek was the only candidate.

The team of NPI scientists led by prof. Anna Macková participated in the international conference ANP 2024 (Applied Nuclear Physics 2024) from September 23 to 27, 2024, which was held this year in the Greek city of Thessaloniki. A total of 200 participants from 28 countries visited the conference. During the meeting, 130 lectures were given and 30 posters were presented. In addition to Anna Macková also Vladimír Havránek, Romana Mikšová, Olexandr Romanenko and Eva Štěpanovská presented new scientific results on behalf of the NPI and the Tandetron Laboratory, Department of Neutron and Ion Methods.

On October 1, 2024, the European Organization for Nuclear Research – CERN celebrated its 70th anniversary. The celebrations took place in the CERN Science Gateway, the new hub for education and outreach, and they were attended by many national delegations including scientific, political, and economic leaders. Among the scientists who work in the experiments hosted by CERN, there is also a team from the NPI. One of the team members is Dr. Filip Křížek, head of the Department of Heavy Ion Physics at the NPI. He described the current cooperation and plans for the future in an interview.

On Friday, November 10, and Saturday, November 11, 2023, the traditional Open Days as part of the Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences, organized annually jointly by the NPI, the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry (IIC) of the CAS, the ÚJV Řež and the Research Centre Řež (CVŘ), were successfully held at the Řež research area.

On November 14, 2023, NPI was visited by Prof. RNDr. Eva Zažímalová, CSc., president of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Ing. Ilona Müllerová, DrSc., vicepresident of the CAS.  They were accompanied by members of the Academic Council of the CAS: prof. RNDr. David Honys and doc. RNDr. Tomáš Kostelecký, CSc. Further guests from the CAS were Ing. Leoš Horníček, Ph.D., JUDr. Katarína Mocková, Mgr. Dita Hladíková and Mgr. Iva Raitermanová.

On November 10, 2023, doc. Ing. Vladimír Hnatowicz, DrSc., was appointed by the President of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) as an emeritus scientist according to the Career Rules of the CAS at the suggestion of the NPI management. After Otokar Dragoun, he is already the second emeritus scientist at the NPI. Congratulations!

The fourth «Barrande» workshop, focused on Czech-French cooperation in the field of research and development of nuclear physics, took place in the premises of the Le Relais Saint Michel hotel near the island castle of Mont-Saint-Michel, France, on October 11-12, 2023.

On Saturday, November 11, 2023, the traditional Open Day will take place in the research area of Řež. Open Day is organized annually as part of the Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS), jointly by the NPI of the CAS, the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry (IIC) of the CAS, the ÚJV Řež and the Research Centre of Řež (CVŘ).

With the participation of six dozen Czech and foreign experts, the 307th Talks of the Czech and Slovak Crystallographic Association (CSCA) on current matters in X-ray and neutron structural analysis took place in the ÚJV Řež Conference Center on September 26. The organizers of the event were the Department of Neutron Physics (DNP) NPI of the CAS, Institute of Inorganic Chemistry (IIC) of the CAS, Research Centre Řež (CVŘ) and ÚJV Řež. This Talks were subtitled Crystallography in the Nuclear Valley - from Materials for Nuclear Safety to Cultural Heritage.

Ing. Vít Jakubský, Ph.D. from the Department of Theoretical Physics, NPI, received the prestigious degree of Doctor of Science (DSc.) on October 4, 2023. Congratulations!

Josef Novák from the Faculty of Science of the J. E. Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem, under the supervision of Dr. Petr Malinský from the Department of Neutron Physics NPI, won in the Particle and Nuclear Physics section of the 13th Czech-Slovak Student Scientific Conference in Physics for his diploma thesis Modification of the Properties of Polymers and Graphene Oxide with Ion Beams for Sensory and Photocatalytic Applications.

On September 13, the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) published an interview in Czech with one of this year's winners of the Otto Wichterle Prize, who is also an employee of our Department of Radiation Dosimetry and the CRL and AMS laboratories, in the form of a half-hour audio podcast entitled Veronika Brychová nahlíží urychlovačem částic do pravěkého jídelníčku (Veronika Brychová peeks into the prehistoric diet with a particle accelerator).

ReMade-IND program is a pilot initiative of the ReMade@ARI consortium, in whose activities NPI of the CAS also participates. The aim of the initiative is to connect visionary industrial companies with knowledge providers of expertise and state-of-the-art characterization techniques in Advanced Research Infrastructures (ARIE) in development the issue of materials in the circular economy.

At the end of August, the 2nd Call for TransNational Access (TNA) research proposals for 2023 year was opened as part of the ReMade@ARI (ReMade-TNA) project, in which the NPI of the CAS also participates.

We invite all young artists to create, using any technique, what their parents, grandparents or other relatives are working in the Řež scientific area in any of the institutions and companies here.

Already 21th year of the Václav Votruba Prize for the best thesis in theoretical physics is announced by the Doppler Institute for Mathematical Physics and Applied Mathematics, co-founded by the Department of Theoretical Physics, NPI of the CAS.

From June 8 to 10, 2023, another Veletrh vědy (Science Fair), the largest science popularization event in the Czech Republic, took place at the PVA Expo exhibition center in Letňany Prague's quarter. Traditionally, there was also the NPI stand.

From Thursday 8 to Saturday 10 June 2023, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., the next edition of the Veletrh vědy (Science Fair), the largest Czech science popularization event, will take place at the PVA EXPO exhibition center in Prague's quarter Letňany. Entry is free and, traditionally, there will also be a NPI´s stand.

The team from the Department of Radiation Dosimetry of the NPI, in cooperation with Radana Přenosilová, created the educational comic story in Czech named Na výlet do vesmíru aneb Pozor, kosmické záření! (On a trip to space, or: Attention, cosmic radiation!).

At the beginning of December 2023, the staff of the Department of Radiation Dosimetry, NPI, will launch Fík-9, the ninth stratospheric balloon. In conjunction with the flight, DRD has announced the FÍK-BALLOON competition for high school students to conduct scientific experiments. The deadline for applications for the competition is June 30.

At its 23rd meeting on May 2, 2023, the Academic Council of the Czech Academy of Sciences approved the proposal of the NPI management to award the Otto Wichterle Prize to Dr. Veronika Brychová from the Department of Radiation Dosimetry and Dr. Giovanni Ceccio from the Department of Neutron Physics.

The international workshop took place from April 14 to 17 in Prague's quarter Bubeneč in Vila Lanna, a facility of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The main organizer of the event was Ivan Horváth from the Department of Theoretical Physics (NPI), and our researchers Michal Šumbera and Filip Křížek were among the speakers.

An international team led by the Institute of Archaeology of the CAS in Prague has successfully completed its third excavation season in Oman. Radiocarbon and cosmogenic nuclides datings of the findings are provided by the NPI of the CAS.

Lunar VIcinity Complex Environmental Explorer (LVICE²) probe is being developed by a Czech consortium led by esc Aerospace company. A number of academic institutions participate in the development of scientific instruments for the probe, our Department of Radiation Dosimetry (DRD) of the NPI of the CAS is preparing instruments for measuring ionizing radiation.

On December 15 - 16, the annual meeting of the International Advisory Board (IAB) of our institute took place in the NPI meeting room. Eight members of the IAB attended the meeting in person, the others via online transmission due to travel obstacles caused by actual weather situation.

At the beginning of December, the Council of the strategic consortium LENS (League of Advanced European Neutron Sources), founded in 2018 by nine leading European neutron facilities, approved the application of the NPI of the CAS for membership in this organization.

After a two-year break, the third Czech-French workshop «Barrande» took place on 28 and 29 November 2022 in the premises of the Liblice Castle, a facility of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS). The workshop was focused on Czech-French cooperation in research and development in the field of nuclear physics.

The Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) has published the results of the 9th year of Věda fotogenická (Photogenic Science) photo competition, in which our employees were significantly successful this year. The winner in the Scientists and Adventures category was Ing. Roman Garba, PhD. from the Department of Nuclear Spectroscopy, the prize in online voting for the best video was won by Roman Dvořák from the Department of Radiation Dosimetry. Congratulations!

The management of one of the largest Large Research Infrastructures (LRI) currently being built in Europe, the FAIR accelerator laboratory, spent two hectic days in the Czech Republic on November 24 and 25, 2022. 

On Thursday, November 24, at 4:00 p.m., there will be a lecture by Prof. Paolo Giubellino, long-time head of the ALICE experiment at CERN and current scientific director of the FAIR accelerator infrastructure, and FAIR's technical director Jörg Blaurock, in auditorium B-103 at the FNSPE CTU in Prague.

On November 16, 2022, the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis I mission took off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on its way towards the Moon. Onboard there are the women phantoms (mannequins) Helga and Zohar as part of the DLR MARE experiment. They are equipped, among other instruments, with detectors measuring cosmic radiation, developed by the Department of Radiation Dosimetry (DRD) of the Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS.

From November 4 to 5, 2022, as part of the Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS), the annual Open Days took place in the Řež research area, co-organized by two of CAS institutes – the Nuclear Physics Institute and the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry – together with the ÚJV Řež and the Research Center Řež (CVŘ).

On Tuesday, October 18, 2022, Ing. Otokar Dragoun, DrSc. on the proposal of the NPI management, was appointed by the Czech Academy of Sciences as an emeritus scientist/scholar of the CAS. This is the very first appointment to this position in the NPI on the basis of the Career Development Rules of the CAS.

The recent achievements in the research of the powerful electron accelerators operating in the earth’s atmosphere were reported during the 8th iteration of the Thunderstorms and elementary particle accelerators (TEPA) conference in Prague, October 17-20, 2022. The conference in the premises of Department of Radiation Dosimetry (DRD) of the Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS was organized by the Cosmic Ray Division of Yerevan Physics Institute, Armenia, and by the Research Centre of Cosmic Rays and Radiation Events in Atmosphere (CRREAT), leaded by NPI of the CAS.

As usual part of the annual Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS), open days of the research area in Řež for schools and the public will take place from November 4 to 5, 2022. They are co-organized by two institutes of the CAS – the Nuclear Physics Institute and the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry – together with ÚJV Řež and Research Center Řež.

NPI of the CAS joined the European research infrastructure project ReMade@ARI (REcyclable MAterials DEvelopment at Analytical Research Infrastructures), launched on September 1, 2022.

The newly accredited doctoral study program at the Jan Evangelista Purkinje University, Faculty of Science will start its activities in the coming academic year. The program was created in cooperation with the NPI of the CAS and the Research Center Řež. 

On July 26, 2022, ten years have passed since the death of prof. Ing. Čestmír Šimáně, DrSc., founder and first director of the Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS (originally forming a unit within former ČSAV with today's ÚJV a. s.).

The 14th International Conference on Hypernuclear and the Strange Particles Physics, HYP2022, is co-organized by NPI of the CAS, in cooperation with FNSPE CTU in Prague in OREA Hotel Pyramida from June 27 to July 1, 2022.

The LVICE² scientific satellite, manufactured entirely in the Czech Republic, will study the space environment around the Moon and at Lagrange's L4 point, from 2026. Mission with scientific instruments of NPI and IAP of the CAS, CTU in Prague and FMP CU will help in planning future missions in our Solar system.

Jubilee 20th year of the Václav Votruba Prize for the best thesis in theoretical physics is announced by the Doppler Institute for Mathematical Physics and Applied Mathematics, co-founded by the Department of Theoretical Physics, NPI of the CAS.

NPI of the CAS and Research Centre of Cosmic Rays and Radiation Events in the Atmosphere (CRREAT) managed by NPI, in cooperation with the Cosmic Ray Division of the Yerevan Physics Institute, Armenia (YPI), are organizing the 8th TEPA Conference from 17 to 20 October 2022 in Prague. "TEPA" is an abbreviation for the Thunderstorms and Elementary Particles Acceleration.

On Thursday, June 2, 2022, we said goodbye to RNDr. Petr Lukáš, CSc., who was part of the NPI management for a total of 22 years, half of which in the director's position. He is now returning in full to his scientific work in the Neutron Physics Department of the NPI.

You will find (not only) the stand of the NPI at this year's Science Fair (Veletrh vědy), which will take place from Thursday 2 to Saturday 4 June at the PVA Expo area in Letňany, Prague. Entry to the event is free and visitors of all ages and backgrounds can choose from the program.

On 24 May, the jury of the Henri Becquerel Scientific Prize for Nuclear Research, awarded by Électricité de France (EDF) in cooperation with the French Embassy in Prague, judged the oral presentations of the competitors in the meeting room of the Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS in Řež.

NPI of the CAS has entered into a long-term cooperation agreement with Eckert & Ziegler AG, a German specialist in medical radionuclides, to produce the alpha emitter Actinium-225.

On Monday, May 9, 2022, the first laboratory of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) in the Czech Republic was ceremonially opened on the premises of NPI accelerators area in Řež, in the presence of the president of the Czech Academy of Sciences Eva Zažímalová and the Minister of Science, Research and Innovation Helena Langšádlová.

Department of Radiation Dosimetry NPI initiated the EURADOS and MEENAS webinar with Olena Pareniuk from the Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine on the current situation in Chornobyl and Zaporizhzhya NPPs and Charkiv neutron source facility.

The Board of the Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS, p. r. i. (NPI) announces a public tender on director position in the NPI. 

We warmly invite you to a webinar about our project CRREAT (Research Centre of Cosmic Rays and Radiation Events in the Atmosphere), which will take place on March 10, 2022 from 1.30 pm. The webinar is organized within the regular webinars of the international organization EURADOS (European Radiation Dosimetry Group) under the auspices of the working group WG11 (High energy radiation fields). 

The international research team of the KATRIN project with Czech participation announced in the leading scientific journal Nature Physics that its new measurements reduced the upper limit of the mass of the neutrino, the lightest elementary particle of matter, to 0.8 electron volts (eV, 1 eV = 1.8x10^-36 kg).

XLII. Days of Radiation Protection will take place from 8 to 12 November, 2021. The annual conference of Czech and Slovak experts, representatives of state administration and companies working in the field of radiation protection is held online this year.

The Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences has traditionally included the Open Days of the Řež scientific valley. This year, it will take place on November 6 from 1 pm to 4 pm in the online form, under the name Nuclear-Chemical Afternoon in Řež.

At the end of October 2021, the first meeting of the International Advisory Board of the NPI (IAB) took place in the NPI meeting room in Řež.

Applied Nuclear Physics Conference (ANPC) took place in Prague at the Faculty of Architecture (Czech Technical University) from September 12 to 16, 2021. ANPC was organized under the umbrella of the Nuclear Physics Division (NPD) of the European Physical Society (EPS), the main organizer of Prague´s edition was the Nuclear Physics Institute (NPI) of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) and its CANAM infrastructure.

Last year, the annual outdoor Science Festival took place in the online form only. But this year there took place on September 8 physically again, under the new name VědaFest (ScienceFest), with the subtitle Fun Science Laboratory on Kulaťák („Kulaťák“ is an informal name for the Vítězné náměstí – Victory Square – in Prague´s quarter Dejvice). The stand of the NPI of the CAS could not be missed here.

On July 1, 2021, the French Institute of Prague at Štěpánská Street hosted the conference „Does the force from the Dark side of the Universe exist“? The keynote speaker at the conference was nuclear physicist and astrophysicist Dr. Beyhan Bastin. She works in the French laboratory GANIL on the New JEDI project and she is also the main spokesperson of the project.

The strongest calibration source of monoenergetic electrons based on ⁸³Rb was developed and prepared in the NPI. The source was transferred to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). It is currently being employed in the one-month long measurement that allows for detailed investigation of many properties of the complex apparatus of KATRIN.

The 19th year of the Václav Votruba Prize for the best thesis in theoretical physics is announced by the Doppler Institute for Mathematical Physics and Applied Mathematics, co-founded by the Department of Theoretical Physics, NPI of the CAS.

Applied Nuclear Physics Conference (ANPC), planned in Prague from September 12 to 17, 2021, has updated dates & deadlines. Abstract submission deadline will be May 31. Notification of acceptance will be June 30, early registration deadline will be July 30. For more information, please, see social networks LinkeIn and Twitter.

Some oscillation experiments suggest that in addition to the three mass states of neutrinos, of which the active neutrinos ν_e, ν_µ and ν_τ are composed, there could be a fourth mass state m₄.

The Applied Nuclear Physics Conference (ANPC) has been postponed due to the COVID-19 epidemy and the new date was set up to September 12-17, 2021. The abstract submission was open on December 1, 2020 and the submission deadline will be April 30, 2021. The ANPC has also published the first issue of its 2021 e-newsletter.

Pavel Strunz and Přemysl Beran, scientists of the NPI of the CAS, with researchers from Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum Garching, Siegen University and Technical University Braunschweig were part of an international team of authors who won last year's prestigious Werner Koester Award for outstanding publication in the International Journal of Materials Research (IJMR).

The CRL laboratory, operated by the Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS and the Institute of Archaeology of the CAS, Prague, has dated fragments of larch and oak wood recently found together with a golden plate and a part of an iron nail with a golden cross in a secret corridor of the former Monastery of Milevsko.

Ing. Anna Michaelidesová, Ph.D. from the Department of Radiation Dosimetry of the NPI won one of the Josef Hlávka Awards for 2020 year.

In spite of the Covid-19 pandemic, the international experiment KATRIN at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology continued its long-term measurements of the tritium beta spectrum. The final aim is to assess, in the model independent way, the neutrino rest mass with unprecedented sensitivity of 0.2 eV.

The Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS was visited on 25 September 2020 by the President of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) Prof. RNDr. Eva Zazimalova, CSc. The main focus was on the new AMS laboratory.

On behalf of a four-member Czech team from the NPI of the CAS and from the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU), our colleague Petr Chudoba, Ph.D. (NPI) handed over the manipulator for PSD detector, in-kind contribution of the Czech project FAIR-CZ for the FAIR infrastructure.

At the Svákov Observatory near Soběslav, the operation of the Talíř 01 radio telescope has been put into operation on a magic date and time 2020-09-09 at 19:19 symbolically with the launch of the rocket. It is an astronomical instrument with the largest reflecting surface in the South Bohemian Region.

On Wednesday, September 16, 2020, a truck with the first eleven boxes full of components of the Milea AMS accelerator for the RAMSES project arrived at the NPI of the CAS area in Řež. The remaining nine boxes then arrived in another truck a day later.

The Cosmos Discovery exhibition in Pavilion E at the Exhibition Grounds in Prague's Holešovice has been extended until October 31st, 2020. Now, it also includes the SPACEDOS dosimeter, developed by the Department of Radiation Dosimetry (DRD) of NPI. It is designed to detect cosmic ray particles and estimate the radiation dose received on board satellites.

The jubilee 20th Conference of Czech and Slovak Physicists will take place on September 7-10, 2020 in Prague. It will be organized by the Czech Physical Society UCMP and the Slovak Physical Society together with the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics (FMP) of the Charles University in the FMP building in Troja Prague´s quarter. One-fifth of the conference papers will be presented by NPI staff, including a significant part of our foreign staff. The languages ​​of the conference will be English, Czech and Slovak.

The official opening of the ICHEP2020 conference will take place on Monday, August 3, 2020 from 3.30 pm (CERN time), followed by a public lecture by Prof. Barry Barish, laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017. Both events can be watched on the Youtube web channel.

CREMLINplus is a Horizon 2020 EU project fostering European-Russian scientific and technical collaboration in the field of large research infrastructures and their mutual harmonization.

NPI Department of the Nuclear Reactions participates in the RADNEXT project proposal, coordinated by the CERN. RADNEXT acronyme is abbreviation of the RADiation facility Network for the EXploration of effects for indusTry and Research.

18th year of the Václav Votruba Prize for the best thesis in theoretical physics is announced by the Doppler Institute for Mathematical Physics and Applied Mathematics, co-founded by the Department of Theoretical Physics of the NPI.

Prague´s ICHEP 2020, 40th International Conference on High Energy Physics, will take place from July 28 to August 6, 2020. Due to the coronavirus crisis, conference will only take place online. ICHEP is the largest particle physics conference with expected 1200 participants from all the world.

On March 31, 2020, Dr. Jan Urbanec died. It was almost exactly four months before his 96th birthday, which he would celebrate on July 30. Until the last moment, despite serious eye disease, he was still in relatively good shape.

The cyclic electron accelerator Microtron MT25 can kill germs with ionizing radiation in a few minutes. The process is carried out without elevated temperature, which makes it possible to irradiate objects made of synthetic materials, which are often used in health care. The facility, located in the civil protection shelter under the Vítkov hill in Prague, is offered free of charge by the NPI of the CAS in times of emergency.

Researchers from the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics (CIIRC), part of the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU), and from the Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS developed a pipetting robotic station. The station, developed in the department of Prof. Václav Hlaváč at CIIRC CTU, was transported to the Central Laboratories Pavilion of Prague's Na Bulovce Hospital on Tuesday 31 March afternoon.

Despite the current difficult situation, NPI scientist Dr. Drahoš Vénos managed to supply a new strong source of radioactive ^83mKr gas, created in NPI, to Karlsruhe (Germany). This source is necessary for the third 60-day neutrino mass measurement in the KATRIN experiment, which started a few days ago at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).

The Applied Nuclear Physics Conference (ANPC) has issued the second information announcement. ANPC 2020, prepared by the Nuclear Physics Division (NPD) of the European Physical Society (EPS) and organized by NPI as a main organizer, will be held on September 13–18, 2020 in Prague.

On Tuesday, December 3, a short conference with author presentations of seven works and collections of works by our researchers, entered this year's NPI Prize competition, took place in NPI meeting room.

November Open Day, as a year ago, was organized by the NPI of the CAS, Institute of Inorganic Chemistry (IIC) of the CAS, ÚJV Řež and Research Centre Řež. It was a part of the Science and Technology Week of the CAS.

The Neuron Science Foundation Endowment Award for Young and Promising Scientists in 2019 in Mathematics was awarded to Dr. Vladimir Lotoreichik from the Department of Theoretical Physics of the NPI for his research in spectral theory and shape optimization.

The prize of the President of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic 2019 was awarded to a project in which scientists from the Laboratory of Tandetron (LT), part of the CANAM infrastructure, participated in 2016-2018. The main investigator of the project Using ion beams for the modification of graphene-based structures was doc. Ing. Zdeněk Sofer, Ph.D. (University of Chemistry and Technology Prague - Faculty of Chemical Technology). The co-investigator of the project was doc. RNDr. Anna Macková, Ph.D. (NPI), head of LT. 

In the sixth edition of the CAS competition Photogenic Science, three photos by two NPI employees were awarded. Michal Dobeš won first place in the Academic Council Awards category for the photo named Inflated frog and shared second place (alongside A. Braunová from the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry of the CAS) in the Scientists and Their Hobby category for the photo named Fear. Shared third place in this category (alongside P. Palečková from the Institute of Photonics and Electronics of the CAS) was won by Roman Garba for his photo Like from another planet.

A traditional part of the CAS event Week of Science and Technology, which will run from November 11 to 17, 2019, will also be the Open Day in the Řež scientific area. This event will be organized jointly by NPI, Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the CAS, ÚJV Řež and Research Center Řež, from November 15 to 16.

The Nuclear Physics Division (NPD) of the European Physical Society (EPS) introduces a new EPS-NPD divisional conference. The Applied Nuclear Physics Conference (ANP) has a particular emphasis on energy, health, space, security, environment, material science, preservation and study of cultural heritage.