The strength of a society lies in clever people and a scientific base, says Monika Vondráková
The Neuron Endowment Fund was set up to support Czech science during the economic crisis after 2009. Over the course of its existence its patrons have given out more than 110 million crowns. It is not dependent on state funding, but even so, if the current state budget were to take the path of cutting spending on science, that would be a signal to its members to intensify their activities and not allow Czech science to fall into oblivion and Czech scientists to leave for other countries. We talk to Monika Vondráková, who has run the Neuron Endowment Fund since it came into being.
READ AN EXCERPT FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH MONIKA VONDRÁKOVÁ, CHAIR OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD OF THE NEURON ENDOWMENT FUND, FOR THE MAGAZINE MM PRŮMYSLOVÉ SPEKTRUM
MM: Most charitable activities in the Czech Republic are devoted to helping the socially disadvantaged and the sick. You decided to support a different area — science. What impulse was decisive in the creation of the fund?
M. Vondráková: The decisive impulse for the creation of the Neuron Endowment Fund was the decline in support for Czech science during the economic crisis of 2008 to 2010. At that time financial support for basic scientific research fell rapidly, and so many young scientists left the country. All over Prague you could see posters saying "Help Czech science". This situation spoke to me and, like many people, I realised that a society can be strong if it supports clever people and has a good scientific base. Society is more inclined to help the socially weaker, and at that time the prevailing view among the public was that the state should take care of scientists and science. I was also inspired by the story of the architect Josef Hlávka. He was a visionary and a patron who maintained that supporting science and art is precisely what matters if one is to help society.
All these things motivated me to support scientists in our country. I visited two scientific institutions, the Academy of Sciences and Česká hlava. After looking into how they worked, I finally decided to put forward a proposal to establish a private charitable organisation at the company where I worked at the time. The company liked the project and one of its shareholders became our first patron.
Our primary vision was built on raising the prestige of scientists in our country. Twelve years ago it was rather athletes and artists who were celebrities. We decided that we would make celebrities of scientists too. The second task was popularising science. At the time we came into being, research was very remote for the general public. Our aim was to popularise and publish scientific stories. Quickly and quite early on we discovered that the public is not so indifferent to this area and does like science. Paradoxically, the current covid period has helped the popularisation and prestige of scientific disciplines and most of the population has begun to perceive science far more intensely and positively. The third area of our mission is connecting science with business. If you do not connect these two worlds, they stop understanding each other and grow further apart.
MM: During the crisis you mention, Czech science needed both financial and moral help. Today the year is 2021 and we are living through another economic crisis. Does Czech science still need such support?
M. Vondráková: It certainly does. Of course the situation in 2010 was different. Young scientists needed free money for their research. Neuron was able to provide them with a sum of about one million crowns, which we called, as a working name, the Neuron impulse. After the economic crisis society began to grow richer. Science began to do well, most projects were presented successfully. It was no longer such a problem to win grants and subsidies, and our form of Neuron impulses was no longer needed as it had been. So we began to give scientists awarded the Neuron Award a personal financial reward, which amounts to about 1.5 million crowns. Personal use means the scientist receives the money and can use it for anything. If, for example, a young woman scientist needs to arrange childcare, she can use the money for exactly that service. If it is a problem to save up for a holiday out of one's salary, the money can be used for a holiday. Whatever helps scientists to devote themselves fully to science, they can use it for that.
We carried out a small questionnaire survey on the subject of what the Neuron Award brings scientists. The conclusions were gratifying. The awards raise scientists' prestige and self-confidence. Neuron has a scientific board made up of top experts in the given field. If a scientist is nominated, they are nominated by whoever is the best in the given branch. Being selected by an authority in the field has enormous significance and value for them.
