In November, the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences (FFWS) of the Czech University of Life Sciences (CZU) succeeded in one of the most important national competitions to support excellent research. In this call, we took 5th place with our EVA 4.0 project among other 130 competing project applications.
The full title of the project is Advanced Research Supporting the Forestry and Wood-processing Sector´s Adaptation to Global Change and the 4th Industrial Revolution. The project will be realized for 5 years and will be coordinated by the Dean of FLD prof. Marek Turčáni, who also significantly contributed to the preparation of the project application. The aim of the project, co-financed by the Operational Program Research, Development and Education (OP VVV), is to build a Center of Excellence Research focusing on the important scientific issues the Faculty deals with. In this spirit, the project will be divided into three main thematic areas: biology, forestry and woodworking.
Building a center of excellence further enhances high-quality scientific work on the FFWD. The preparation of significant scientific publications in most important scientific journals will be enhanced. A large-scale research team of fifty domestic and foreign researchers led by professor and leading researcher of USDA [1] Andrew Liebhold, will be created. The results of the project will be further supervised by the Scientific Council of the project composed of world-renowned experts in the field.
The research infrastructure of the faculty will also be significantly strengthened. Infrastructure investments are calculated in amount of 5,2 million €. More 9,1 million € are allocated to ensure the operation of the project and its research teams. Thus, the total budget of the project is more than 14,3 million € for five years. FFWS management considers the project to be a strategically significant step towards the development of the faculty towards one of the most advanced research and educational institutions in forestry and woodworking in Central Europe.
[1] United States Department of Agriculture