French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences – CEFRES
Na Florenci 3, Prague 1
- Current Events
- Upcoming Events
- Past Events
There are currently no events.
There are currently no events.
There are currently no events.
Dr. Petr Špelda is Assistant Professor at the Department of Security Studies, Charles University. His research focuses on AI safety, epistemology, and inductive inference in learning systems, particularly the formal study of inductive inference in relation to AI safety. He collaborates with researchers at Charles University and the University of Kansas and is affiliated with the Center for Cyber-Social Dynamics at the University of Kansas. He has repeatedly received the Golden Course Prize for Teaching Excellence at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University.
Eva Richter conducts research in the fields of environmental sociology and risk at the Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. She teaches Introduction to Sociology, elective courses focused on the environment, and courses on research methodology. She supports students in academic writing, including citation practices, literature searches, and the analysis of scholarly sources.
David Kosař has extensive experience leading large research projects and teams, having served as principal investigator of two ERC grants (JUDI-ARCH, 2016–2021; INFINITY, 2021–2026), as well as projects funded by the Czech Science Foundation and the Norwegian Funds. His research on judicial governance is based on extensive empirical work, including interviews, surveys, and focus groups with judges across Europe. He collaborates with the Ministry of Justice and examines court-packing, institutional change, gender aspects of judicial reforms, and the impact of digitalisation and the COVID-19 pandemic on courts.
From 2012 to 2019, he was Head of the Department of German and Austrian Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. As an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, he conducted research at the Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Munich and held visiting professorships in Regensburg, Sciences Po, and EHESS in Paris. He coordinated international programmes and research consortia and founded a binational double degree programme in German and Central European Studies.
Prof. Petr Kratochvíl studied theology, international relations, and international political relations at Charles University and Prague University of Economics and Business. He was appointed Associate Professor in 2011 and Professor in 2016. He has held senior academic positions, including Director of the Institute of International Relations Prague and Chair of the Academic Council of the Diplomatic Academy of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He serves on international academic boards and collaborates with leading universities worldwide.
Principal Investigator of the ERC Consolidator Grant “Dissent Network Project” (DISSINET, 2021–2026), leading an international team spanning multiple countries and continents. He has extensive experience managing research projects and interdisciplinary teams across religious studies, medieval studies, digital humanities, and software development. He has held research fellowships at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and delivered lectures at leading European universities, with broad international collaboration and conference participation.
Has extensive leadership experience, having served as Head of Department, Principal Investigator of the Czech National Corpus research infrastructure, and Vice-Dean for Research at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. Alongside a strong international publication record, including articles in top-tier journals, he participates in international projects as a researcher and advisory board member. He maintains long-term research collaboration with Brown University in the United States.
She is Principal Investigator of an EXPRO project and a member of an international research team supported by the American Council of Learned Societies. Her research focuses on the history of Central and Eastern Europe, with particular emphasis on Jewish and Roma history, migration, and refugees. She has published with leading German and American academic presses and maintains long-term collaborations with major universities and research institutions, including Oxford, Cambridge, the University of Chicago, and prominent German research centres.
He is Principal Investigator of an EXPRO project and Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences. He has an extensive record of research, organisational activity, and publications in late medieval history, including individual and collective monographs with leading international publishers. He has held research fellowships in Konstanz, Paris (EHESS), London (UCL), and Berlin (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation) and has been involved in international research networks, maintaining active collaborations with partners worldwide.
Neuron Prize laureate, employee of Stockholm University from 2013 to 2019. She has published in leading international journals, including Semiotica, Style, Communication Theory, and Literacy. She leads the Integrating Text & Literacy (InT&L) research group, which focuses on interdisciplinary research on reading in school-aged children.
She is a leading figure in cognitive linguistics and construction grammar. From 2018 to 2022, she served as principal investigator of the KREAS project (Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions for the Success of Europe in an Interconnected World) within the OP VVV programme. She held academic positions at Princeton University (2001–2008) and the University of California, Berkeley (1998–2001), and has published in leading international journals, including Cognitive Linguistics, Constructions and Frames, and Journal of Pragmatics.
Dr. Clare Wallace has extensive research experience in literary and theatre studies, including the conceptual organisation of international scholarly events such as conferences and workshops. She has been a key researcher in the OP VVV KREAS project and a member of an international research team at the University of Barcelona. She publishes regularly with leading academic presses and in major international journals and is actively involved in international scholarly associations, including as Vice-President of Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English.
Scholar with extensive expertise in gender studies, essential for understanding the dynamics and resilience of democracy, particularly in the crises of the twentieth century. Her research also focuses on Russian culture, society, and history, and on the ways in which Russia influences the political and cultural issues of Central Europe.
Head of the Charles University Centre of Excellence: Theological Anthropology in Ecumenical Perspective and founder and director of the university-wide Centre for Spiritual Care, whose activities contribute to applied research outputs. She has an outstanding publication record in Czech and international venues, including recent monographs published by Brill (2019, 2022).
Internationally recognized scholar whose philosophical work and translations of major foreign philosophers have significantly shaped the development of the humanities in the Czech Republic after 1989. His research focuses on the concept of open identity in relation to Europe, the teleology of history, and personal identity. He also engages with themes of performativity, media, plasticity, and embodiment, situating identity within the broader context of postwar philosophy and art.
Dr. T. Matějčková is an interdisciplinary scholar working across philosophy, literature, political philosophy, and religious studies. She has an established record of international publications and collaborations, including long-term cooperation with Prof. Vieweg at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. She is a member of the international network “Hegel’s Relevance” and has delivered invited lectures at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, University College Dublin, and Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen.
Dr. Věra Honusková is a key member of the team with extensive expertise in the research and application of legal frameworks governing asylum and migration. She is actively engaged in teaching both students and professional audiences, including public administration and judicial stakeholders. She publishes in Czech and international journals and collaborates within the Odysseus Network of migration experts. She serves as Vice-Dean for Development at the Faculty of Law, Charles University.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean nec eros semper, viverra lorem ut, egestas magna. Aenean viverra est vel neque interdum posuere. Curabitur nec sodales neque. Suspendisse sed gravida odio. Aliquam ligula dui, accumsan eget eros ac, luctus varius tellus. Ut pretium est augue, quis ultrices felis hendrerit vel. Sed sollicitudin vulputate mi, sed tristique justo imperdiet id.Nulla non magna et lacus dapibus eleifend molestie et risus.Nullam at risus in tortor aliquet luctus. Nunc at egestas sapien, sit amet cursus metus. Nam at lorem pulvinar, fringilla urna pellentesque, tempus justo. Pellentesque ut scelerisque lorem, nec pellentesque odio. Donec fringilla pretium placerat. Suspendisse potenti.
email@email.cz
website
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean nec eros semper, viverra lorem ut, egestas magna. Aenean viverra est vel neque interdum posuere. Curabitur nec sodales neque. Suspendisse sed gravida odio. Aliquam ligula dui, accumsan eget eros ac, luctus varius tellus. Ut pretium est augue, quis ultrices felis hendrerit vel. Sed sollicitudin vulputate mi, sed tristique justo imperdiet id.Nulla non magna et lacus dapibus eleifend molestie et risus.Nullam at risus in tortor aliquet luctus. Nunc at egestas sapien, sit amet cursus metus. Nam at lorem pulvinar, fringilla urna pellentesque, tempus justo. Pellentesque ut scelerisque lorem, nec pellentesque odio. Donec fringilla pretium placerat. Suspendisse potenti.
email@email.cz
website
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean nec eros semper, viverra lorem ut, egestas magna. Aenean viverra est vel neque interdum posuere. Curabitur nec sodales neque. Suspendisse sed gravida odio. Aliquam ligula dui, accumsan eget eros ac, luctus varius tellus. Ut pretium est augue, quis ultrices felis hendrerit vel. Sed sollicitudin vulputate mi, sed tristique justo imperdiet id.Nulla non magna et lacus dapibus eleifend molestie et risus.Nullam at risus in tortor aliquet luctus. Nunc at egestas sapien, sit amet cursus metus. Nam at lorem pulvinar, fringilla urna pellentesque, tempus justo. Pellentesque ut scelerisque lorem, nec pellentesque odio. Donec fringilla pretium placerat. Suspendisse potenti.
email@email.cz
website
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean nec eros semper, viverra lorem ut, egestas magna. Aenean viverra est vel neque interdum posuere. Curabitur nec sodales neque. Suspendisse sed gravida odio. Aliquam ligula dui, accumsan eget eros ac, luctus varius tellus. Ut pretium est augue, quis ultrices felis hendrerit vel. Sed sollicitudin vulputate mi, sed tristique justo imperdiet id.Nulla non magna et lacus dapibus eleifend molestie et risus.Nullam at risus in tortor aliquet luctus. Nunc at egestas sapien, sit amet cursus metus. Nam at lorem pulvinar, fringilla urna pellentesque, tempus justo. Pellentesque ut scelerisque lorem, nec pellentesque odio. Donec fringilla pretium placerat. Suspendisse potenti.
email@email.cz
website
Prof. Petr Kratochvíl studied theology, international relations, and international political relations at Charles University and Prague University of Economics and Business. He was appointed Associate Professor in 2011 and Professor in 2016. He has held senior academic positions, including Director of the Institute of International Relations Prague and Chair of the Academic Council of the Diplomatic Academy of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He serves on international academic boards and collaborates with leading universities worldwide.
He works at the Department of Political Science at Charles University and collaborates with the Center for Ibero-American Studies at the same faculty. His research focuses on democratic transitions, authoritarian regimes, and political processes in Southern Europe and Latin America. He has published on political developments in Bolivia and Venezuela, including a monograph on Bolivian history published in 2009.
Vít Střítecký is an Associate Professor in International Security and Head of Department of Security Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. His research focuses on policy issues associated with machine learning. He is most interested in regulatory approaches that emphasize the role of standardization as a way of addressing safety and security issues. More generally, his expertise lies at the interface between security and technology, which connects the courses he teaches.
Doc. Robert Zbíral has extensive experience leading research teams as principal investigator of two large Czech Science Foundation projects, four EACEA (Jean Monnet) projects, and as leader of a research group within a Horizon 2020 project. His work involved intensive international cooperation with institutions such as University College London, ETH Zurich, and Utrecht University. His research focuses on large-scale legislative datasets, advanced statistical analysis, and policy recommendations developed in collaboration with Czech government bodies. He publishes in leading Q1 journals, including the Journal of European Public Policy, Party Politics, European Union Politics, and West European Politics.
Dr. Aleš Kudrnáč is one of two junior research leaders. He collaborates closely with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports on the design, implementation, and analysis of large-scale surveys among teachers and households, including nationwide school surveys (2012, 2016, 2017) and a longitudinal household panel study (2015–2020). His research on anti-immigrant attitudes has been published in leading international journals. He has extensive experience with multilevel, panel, and experimental data and strong international research links, enabling him to contribute innovative and high-quality research outputs.
Doc. Martin Ritter has extensive experience coordinating interdisciplinary research, gained through his roles as Scientific Secretary of the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences (FLÚ) in 2018–2019, guarantor of international cooperation development in 2020, and Deputy Director for research since 2022. During a research stay in Vienna (2020–2022), he established close collaboration with Prof. M. Coeckelbergh, which continues within the newly founded Center for Environmental and Technology Ethics – Prague. He publishes widely in international journals and academic presses.
Doc. Tereza Stöckelová has extensive experience in international and interdisciplinary cooperation. In 2020, she co-chaired the leading international conference in Science and Technology Studies, jointly organized by EASST and 4S, with more than 2,500 presenters. Since 2020, she has been a member of the advisory body of the UNESCO World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology and has participated in the GSF/OECD Mobilising Science in Crises expert group since 2021. She has completed research stays at several leading international institutions and regularly evaluates competitive international grant schemes.
Dr. Kateřina Šormová is Director of the Institute of Czech Language and Theory of Communication at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. She has extensive experience managing ESF projects in the didactics of Czech as a second language and teacher training. Her research focuses on second language acquisition among migrants, language testing, and learner corpora. She is a member of the Association of Language Testers in Europe and co-author of Czech language textbooks and assessment tools, collaborating on national Czech language examinations.
Prof. Arnošt Veselý is Head of the Centre for Social and Economic Strategies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, and Vice-Dean for Research. His expertise includes public policy analysis, sociology of education, and educational policy. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. He has led and contributed to major national and international projects, including work within OECD IMHE and the PIAAC study, and chaired the expert group preparing the Czech Education Policy Strategy 2030+.
Prof. Ondřej Beran is affiliated with the Institute of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, and the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Pardubice. Within the CoRe project, he serves as an Excellent Researcher in Research Project 1: Conflict in Thought and as Deputy Head of Research Project 5: Conflict and Manipulation. His research focuses primarily on philosophy of language, ethics, and the history of philosophy. He completed his doctoral studies at Charles University under the supervision of Prof. Jaroslav Peregrin, with a dissertation on the relationship between language and individuality. In addition to his scholarly publications, he is actively engaged in the public communication of philosophy through lectures, debates, and writings for wider audiences.
Prof. Eva Voldřichová Beránková has long-standing experience in coordinating international research networks, including within the OP RDE KREAS project. From 2014 to 2018, she served as Vice-Dean for International Relations at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, and is currently Vice-Rector for International Affairs at Charles University. Her international publications focus on narrativity and its relation to epistemology. She has been deeply involved in international projects and academic mobility, holding grants from the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie and serving as visiting professor at Sorbonne-Université, Université du Québec, and the University of Cambridge.
An expert in game theory, behavioral economics, and political economy, he has authored or co-authored numerous studies in leading international journals, including the Journal of Economic Psychology and the International Journal of Game Theory. He has held senior research and teaching positions at major institutions abroad, serving as Deputy Director of the Max Planck Institute of Economics – Strategic Interaction Group in Jena and teaching at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and at Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. He is currently Director of the Center for Modeling Biological and Social Processes and a researcher at CERGE-EI in Prague.
Doc. Tomáš Klír conducts interdisciplinary research on pre-industrial European society, economics, resilience, and environmental history. He has experience in leading international projects (GA ČR, Lead Agency), is involved in international associations (member of the executive committee of Ruralia – European Association for Medieval and Post-Medieval Rural Archaeology), and has completed long-term internships abroad (Cambridge, Aarhus). Doc. Klír is the author of several monographs, studies in high-impact journals, and in specialist publications from prestigious publishers (Routledge, Brepols, Springer, Steiner, Universitätsverlag Winter).
Prof. Lucie Doležalová is a recognized expert in medieval Latin studies with a strong interdisciplinary focus. She has published extensively in English, including monographs and studies with leading publishers such as Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Brepols, Brill, and De Gruyter. She is a regular invited speaker at international conferences and has organized major scholarly events, including the International Medieval Congress Leeds (2018) and Medialatinitas IX (2022). She is a member of the Scientific Council and Chair of the Scientific Committee at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University.
From 2020 to 2023, he worked at the University of Tübingen as part of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers. Doc. Jan Chromý has published in prestigious journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology and Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics. He leads the Experimental Research on Central European Languages (ERCEL) research team, which focuses on psycholinguistic research into language processing in speakers of Central European languages.
Dr. Kateřina Chládková worked at the University of Amsterdam (2009–2014) and the University of Leipzig (2016–2018) and has been a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig since 2017. She has published in leading journals including Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Language Learning, and Brain and Language. She leads the SPEAKIN lab research group, focusing on speech development, language learning, and empirical research on speech processing across languages and populations.
Prof. Ondřej Pilný has extensive experience in international cooperation as President of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literature and Vice-President of the European Federation of Associations and Centres for Irish Studies. He has led or contributed to major international grant projects supported by the European Union, national research agencies, and the Czech Ministry of Education. He publishes with leading academic presses and journals, including Palgrave Macmillan/Springer, Oxford University Press, and Manchester University Press. His interdisciplinary research and teaching span literary and theatre studies, cultural theory, area studies, and European history.
Prof Martin Procházka is the coordinator of the European Joint Doctorate MOVES and has served as principal investigator or sub-coordinator in several major international projects (ACUME, ACUME2, TEEME). He publishes with leading presses such as Bloomsbury, Routledge, and Wiley. His extensive international research experience includes ACLS grants, stays at UC Berkeley, Volkswagen Stiftung, and Universität Heidelberg. He has held visiting professorships in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Portugal and served as Vice-Chair of the International Shakespeare Association.
Prof Vojtěch Kolman is an experienced scholar whose work spans epistemology, mathematics, logic, and art. He has coordinated interdisciplinary research, including the OP RDE KREAS project, and served as Vice-Dean for Science at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University (2014–2017). His publications appear in leading international journals such as Synthese, Erkenntnis, de Gruyter, Routledge, Springer, and Felix Meiner. He has also held prestigious fellowships at the University of Leipzig (Humboldt) and the University of Pittsburgh (Fulbright).
The content of RWP9 is a comparative and trans-regional analysis of international developments in strategic regions (e.g., post-Soviet space, China, India, Latin America) from the perspective of the culture wars with the aim of contributing, through their contextualization, to the resilience and cohesion of Czech society and its ability to express itself outwards. Analysis will be crucial especially in the case of alternative modernizing visions towards liberal democracy, as can be observed for example in the Russian Federation or China, and their efforts to implement alternative modernity in other regions (Latin America, Africa), but also on the European continent (especially in Central Europe and by military force in Ukraine).
WP8 will analyse the causes and manifestations of social and political polarization – amplified by disruptive events (e.g., economic shocks, migration, war in Ukraine), which ultimately reduce resilience through the failure of society’s ability to moderate social conflicts. By analysing data from a panel survey (2024–2027) and a series of qualitative and experimental studies, this WP will examine how citizens react to disruptive changes; and will investigate how public institutions may reduce the negative consequences.
The aim of RWP7 is to enhance ecological resilience (taking into account social, biological and technological as well as material dimensions) and to analyse the possibilities of transition to more sustainable forms of society (including the economy and energy) through empirical investigation of the ambivalent role of technology as both a contributor to climate change and the associated societal challenges and as a tool for addressing them. An analysis of people’s responses to a technologically transformed world, particularly in the affective sphere, moving on a scale between ecological despair and technological optimism.
The aim of RWP 6 is to analyse the transformation of education systems in response to a series of disruptive events (pandemic, war in Ukraine, energy crisis) through the analysis of the nodal conflict constellations of relevant stakeholders entering the transformation processes (state administration, parents, students, private and non-profit sectors) with the aim of designing more effective interaction models.
RWP5 will conduct an experimental analysis of the impact of populist “framing” (framing bias/labelling) on individual attitudes (micro-level) and the spread of these attitudes in society (by experimental methods, agent-based network models, or possibly. Bayesian networks) depending on the algorithmic structure of social networks (macro level) with the aim of designing policies that, depending on age, gender, education, and general psychosocial characteristics, increase resilience to populist framing both at the individual and societal level.
RWP4 will use the methods and sources of historical sciences to strengthen existing resilience models by incorporating long-term (diachronic) analysis for the (Central) European region in order to not only gain a deeper understanding of current crises, but also to identify emerging societal threats, hazards and consequences that may remain hidden to synchronic research, even though resilience theories predict these processes of long duration (on the order of hundreds of years to millennia). They do so through (1) a comprehensive analysis of a wide range of disasters and crises (2) in the context of sufficiently diverse social constellations (3) over the long term.
RWP3 focuses on research on increasing social and individual resilience in the context of linguistic, dialectal, and experiential diversity and multilingualism by examining language-based social attitudes and prejudices towards speakers of foreign languages and towards speakers of Czech with foreign accents (preserving one’s own language as a manifestation of identity × accepting the majority language as a means of inclusion). Analysis of the factors that cause communication conflicts, as well as the ways in which people eliminate or overcome conflict, will lead to the preparation of society for linguistic diversity.
RWP 2 explores the process of increasing resilience through the prism of the formation of individual/group identities in modern, post-traditional societies in art (especially literature and theatre) and in contemporary spirituality (e.g., through the analysis of quasi-religious communities and their rituals, identity conspiracy narratives, etc.). The research takes place in a historical perspective determined mainly by the development of ethnic nationalism in Europe in the 18th–21st centuries. It focuses on the involvement of art and spirituality to this development, thus demonstrating their contribution to understanding contemporary identity conflicts in particular.
Resilience – in particular on the social level – is based on the acceptance of social and political conflict as an integral and even productive part of the functioning of society.
Our contribution to resolving the issue of “increasing society’s resilience to strengthen security” is to provide knowledge and practical models that would improve the society’s ability to constructively manage conflict within the framework of democratic principles while respecting individual and social freedoms.
RWP 1 is based on the premise that thinking is based on conflict, within oneself and with others. The conflict within us therefore belongs to the conditio humana and cannot be definitively eliminated but at most used to our advantage. To do this, we need to have discursive representations that allow us to develop and adequately manage conflict in thought, i.e. to make us resilient to its destructive forms, as the institution of so-called critical thinking attempts to do, not always successfully. Based on a broad conceptual, historical, legal, literary and narrative analysis of the conflictual nature of experience and conflict situations, specific representations that resolve conflict and contribute to strengthening social resilience will be elaborated and implemented.