To kindle a passion for science among children

Five questions for the 2021 Neuron Award laureates, five answers. How have their work and their lives moved on since last year's awards ceremony and what do they expect from the future?

Answering next is the economist Petr Sedláček, who received the Neuron Award for young promising scientists for research into the roles of firms and startups in macroeconomics.

I received the Neuron Award last September. Since then my field has…

…gone back in time by almost half a century. At that time the global economy was also experiencing high inflation and slow growth. Fortunately economics has moved forward over the last few decades and in the foreseeable future we will hopefully see central banks manage to get inflation under control again.

I personally have experienced since September…

…a great deal that is new — a new country, a new place of work, new students. Fortunately I took my family and my work with me, so in fact only the small things changed.

At the moment my field can help society by…

…supporting the independence of central banks in the fight against inflation, which undermines the population's standard of living. That is precisely why it is very important to leave this problem to politically independent institutions.

Because in the distant future I expect science to…

…help us fight humanity's greatest problems — from climate change to economic and social inequality — I hope that we will manage to kindle a passion for science among our children. The more people are fascinated by science, the greater the potential for great scientific discoveries.

So that more Neuron Award laureates come along who can then display the glass statuette as I do…

…at their parents' home. Unfortunately I have not yet had the chance to return to the Czech Republic since the awards ceremony, so my first meeting with the glass statuette is still ahead of me.