“Development of academic collaboration 20 years after the Velvet Revolution – a personal view, retrospect and outlook”

The year 1989 has been a most important and decisive one for my life.
Three events happened within two months, which in retrospect have had a lasting influence: First event was essential for my academic career: I received “venia docendi”, habilitation. The second one marks a prominent transformation of my private life: my first child, my daughter Katharina was born. And the third incidence – actually a series of tremors in the European political landscape – was the break-down of the iron curtain, which had its impact in my immediate environment by what is today known and celebrated as the “Velvet Revolution”.
The impact of the fall of the iron curtain, in general, and of the velvet revolution, in particular, on my private and professional life have been tremendous:
My children only know the iron curtain from history books. Having Czech guests at our home is so common, that it hardly gets special mentioning any more. Peer-to-peer scientific collaboration and joint study and research programs are a reality.
People of my generation grew up in the period of cold war. The information and views we had from the “other” half of Europe were sparse and filtered – personal contacts were rare until 1989.
Experiencing the open border between our countries today, it is hard to believe, that as a child I stood on that very border stricken by fear of what might be across that border behind that barbed wire, where one could see watch towers and armed soldiers.
As scientists we had the privilege of maybe more contact across the iron curtain than others – but it was in a very controlled way, which had to involve a lot of formalities and slyness to achieve the exchange of scientific information wanted. We always knew that there are excellent scientists in this country – but it was not always easy to get in contact with the right ones.
Of course the big changes were not a thing that happened overnight but the “Velvet Revolution” triggered a development on the European and Bilateral levels that was unstoppable, although of course and quite naturally obstacles always occur and have to be overcome in the development.
The intense scientific and academic contacts that developed between my university, the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, and Czech universities, most prominently the University of South Bohemia, but not limited to this one alone, did not occur overnight – it was a lengthy process of building up relations and developing mutual trust and a cross-border team spirit. It should not be left unmentioned that for the daily exchange – and we really do have personnel exchange on a day-by-day basis sometimes, two more facts have been crucial:
The joining of both our countries to the European Union and the signing of the Schengen treaty – which made most of the negative impacts of a transnational border disappear.
Since 1991 I have regularly visited scientific conferences in my field of specialization in your country and both witness and maybe contribute a little to the developments.
Today I wish to present to you briefly one of the most promising joint cross-border projects that have developed between two universities, a cross border study-program in “Biological Chemistry”. All this would not have been possible without the political events triggered by the “Velvet Revolution”. As I mentioned, these projects did not develop immediately, in this particular case we started discussing the possibility of joint cross-border study programs in 1999, ten years ago, with members of the University of South Bohemia and the Academy of Sciences. Although the protagonists of the project on both sides were extremely enthusiastic, progress was very slow initially for many reasons. Of course there was no established procedure to follow, the right contacts had to be established.  Also we met skepticism on both side of the borders and ignorance. Never in the ten years of work on this endeavor did I meet open opposition – but one might suspect a little passive resistance here and there. I will not go into the details of our early efforts, which were not successful in establishing a new program. Nevertheless they were very important for getting to know each other, the different approaches and different cultures. After all the cultures are not too different – it appears that some of the problems, which can be very time consuming to overcome, have a common and very deep root in the common past of our countries: It’s a tradition of deeply since the time of monarchy, apparently a most long lasting heritage.
So to cut a long matter short – finally we have successfully established a joint cross-border double-degree study program: Biological Chemistry. Establishing the Bachelor curriculum would not have been possible without the support of the European Union through the INTERREG III program.
This curriculum is taught in English language exclusively both at the University of South Bohemia and at the Johannes Kepler University. At the moment we have ca. 60 students in the program about 45% from Austria, 45% from the Czech Republic, and 10% from other countries. The latter is a good sign for the international reputation the program generates, although it is not advertised globally yet. The students attend their courses in the first two years alternating annually between Linz and Ceske Budejovice. They spend a lot of time together in student laboratories, which also intensifies their mutual interaction and mutual integration.
The University of South Bohemia and the Johannes Kepler University contribute their mutually complementary competences to the study program. In Linz there is strong chemistry based on the local established chemical industry, while Ceske Budejovice and Nove Hrady deliver their know-how in modern biology. It is a true equitable partnership with exchange on all levels, Czech professors teaching in Upper Austria, Austrian teacher lecturing in South Bohemia. In the slides you can see the most advanced group of students in the Biological Chemistry Bachelor Program in the organic chemistry student lab at our institute.
In continuation of this effort we have jointly established another project through EU-support. Within the program called European Territorial Collaboration, the University of South Bohemia, as lead partner together with Johannes Kepler University have been granted support for establishing the cross-border Biological Chemistry Master Curriculum, which will start in the winter semester of 2010.
The Master program in Biological Chemistry, again set up as a cross-border joint double-degree curriculum. The syllabus is ready, and the accreditation process is running. The impact of these higher education programs will be felt both by industry and academic institutions by the availability of a new type of researcher, with equal qualification in chemistry and biology as well as international experience and language qualification. My personal vision is that these people will contribute substantially to the transformation of chemical industry by biological methods, i.e. prepare the introduction of white biotechnology. But also for companies active in the area of biomedicine and green biotech should be attracted to hiring those people, contributing to the development of the cross-border region.
As indicators of successful execution of our collaboration we can value the fact that others are looking at our program as an example for further cross-border curricula: Between Linz and Ceske Budejovice another joint program in Bioinformatics is in discussion, and I have received requests from the University of Vienna and the Technical University of Vienna to help them establishing joint study programs with universities in Brno and Bratislava, respectively.
Europe now, establishing regional cross border research infrastructure makes sense and offer enormous new opportunities to compete in the global scientific community. The Johannes Kepler University in Linz and the University of South Bohemia have recently reached an agreement to establish a joint research facility, which we intend to put into practice with support from EU-funds. This will allow researchers in this region to benefit from similar advantages as available in the big university cities, joint scientific infrastructure. It will allow us to attract international projects, highly qualified personnel and expand the level of scientific competence in the region by large. Of course many measures are synergistic in this respect:
Joint research projects enabled by joint research infrastructure benefiting from and contributing to joint science education, all this facilitated by improved cross-border communication and cross-border traffic.
Maybe, I might add a vision at the end of my talk – a number of years from now –maybe I will be retired than already – a regional cross-border university could evolve from this start.
Last but not least I would like to express my thanks to the institutions that have supported the joint cross border programs:
We are grateful to the INTERREG III and INTERREG IV programs of the European Union, in particular the ETC-Program Austria- Republic and the bilateral AKTION-WTZ-Program of Austria and the Czech Republic.
With all institutional support, after all it is individual persons who put their energy and dedication into the plans, often at a stage where realization is but a dream. Many persons have been involved to get our collaboration to the point, where we are now – it’s impossible to name them all. I want to give just the names of a few persons, without whom we would not have been able to realize the cooperative projects:
Prof. Libor Grubhoffer, Dean of; Dr. Dalibor Stys, Institute of Physical Biology in Nove Hrady; Dr. Frantisek Vacha, Pro-Dekan at the Science Faculty of the University of South Bohemia