An ovation for Grygar! For fostering a love of science

It was powerful, it was moving. On Sunday 18 January a packed hall at the Prague Planetarium rose to its feet and applauded Jiří Grygar, astrophysicist and the country's foremost populariser of science, who in his own words "has sent a lot of people into orbit". And so he has. The Neuron Award for fostering a love of science went to the author of the television programme Windows on the Universe Wide Open and of countless broadcasts, articles and lectures. Dr Jiří Grygar! He received the award on the direct initiative of Monika Řasa Vondráková, director of the Neuron Foundation, and it was presented on stage by the patron Dalibor Dědek.

"It is hard to say whether the Prague Planetarium has ever experienced applause as long and as powerful as on Sunday evening. The moment Jiří Grygar stepped onto the stage, everyone immediately rose. And especially those in whom he awakened a love of science thanked him with resounding applause," reported Forbes magazine, which was there. The audience genuinely had shivers down their spines. And the evening's host, Daniel Stach, admitted with emotion that he was reluctant to address "Jura" informally, even though the legendary Grygar had offered it long ago… Such is the figure the Neuron Foundation has honoured.

Generations enthused about science

Behind Grygar lie countless activities inviting people to explore the universe around us. Whether the television programme Windows on the Universe Wide Open (broadcast from 1981 to 1991), the radio programme Meteor, the review series Harvest of Discoveries, or his work in the Learned Society and in the Sisyfos Czech Sceptics' Club, which speaks out against "muddy thinking". Jiří Grygar became not only someone who does research himself (he still goes in to the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences) but also someone who can explain astronomy to the wider public. Aptly, comprehensibly and entertainingly. In the television programme mentioned above, he opened windows on the universe wide for every even slightly curious viewer. And he opened windows onto the universe of science for many future scientists. A great many researchers — and not only physicists or astrophysicists — describe Grygar's programme as the moment that set them off.

He has been popularising science for a long time, since he was about fifteen, when at a convalescent home in Velké Losiny he persuaded the management that he and the other children could observe the sky. "While studying at grammar school in Brno I was already helping at the exhibition The Development of the Universe, the Earth and Humanity, which was a wonderful school of popularisation for me; I discovered that people know almost nothing about science. At home I then thought about how to explain that ignorance through comprehensible analogies from daily life. And when, after my school-leaving exams, I began studying physics at Masaryk University, I signed up as a demonstrator at the 'people's observatory' that had just opened," he recalled.

Five thousand lectures given

That was many decades ago. Has public interest in science changed, in his view? "I am not a sociologist, but since I have given an estimated five thousand lectures in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, I can say that something over ten per cent of the adult population has an active interest in science and technology. That is the basis on which popularising science can be built. Other people have a lukewarm interest, though, especially where medicine and biology are concerned," Jiří Grygar said for a book introduction to science communication in 2023. "What is sad is that a large part of the population still tends to believe various charlatans — not only in medicine but in physics, chemistry and astronomy too. Tales about flying saucers with little green men, or about the Earth being flat, tend to be popular," added the man who once memorably debated with just such a "crank" on the radio.

This astronomer and astrophysicist, a founding member of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic, specialised in stellar spectroscopy and remote sensing of the Earth. And what he learned he was able to pass on. Listeners hung on his words and loved his distinctive style. How is popularisation doing today?

The key is the motivation to tell the story

"Personally I am very satisfied with the current standard of science popularisation. In practically every field of science we have top specialists who, besides their research, devote themselves to popularising their field, and they manage above all to reach schoolchildren so that after finishing secondary school they go, as it were, 'into science'. It is in any case a wonderful profession, because all your life you will continuously learn about new discoveries and take an active part in them. What is more, we have had Meteor on the radio since 1963 and, for over a decade, the superb programme Hyde Park Civilisation on Czech Television, which thanks to the tandem of Gabriela Cihlářová and Daniel Stach belongs to the family silver of Czech Television. And thanks to the foreign scientists Dan interviews, these programmes are accessible in English abroad too. The recognition of foreign scientists testifies to the programme's high standard," said the man who looks for answers in the book Science Communication (2023).

And does Jiří Grygar, this year's laureate of the Neuron Award for fostering a love of science, have any advice for those who follow him, for scientists starting out, on how to reach the public and popularise science? "I think the most important thing is motivation, that you want scientific knowledge to reach the wider public, who after all pay us through their taxes. Once you have the motivation, you are bound to think of something." So there we are!

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RNDr. Jiří Grygar, CSc.

He studied physics at Masaryk University and then astronomy at Charles University. His research covers stellar photometry and spectroscopy, interplanetary matter, remote sensing of the Earth and astroparticle physics. He still works at the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences; to the public he is known above all as a populariser of science. He is a founding member of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic and a co-founder of the Sisyfos Czech Sceptics' Club. In 1996 UNESCO awarded him the Kalinga Prize for the popularisation of science and research. He is a keen cyclist and a lover of the figure and work of Jára Cimrman. At the beginning of 2026 he received the Neuron Award for fostering a love of science.