The Department of Social Geography and Regional Development is one of the top social geography university departments in the Czech Republic. Among the staff are senior researchers from the Czech Science Foundation and the Grant Agency of Charles University. Members of the department have participated in international projects (FP7, HORIZON 2020) and, in many respects, are key players at the national level (mainly through their activities in the Czech Geographical Society) and international level (for example, serving on the editorial boards of prestigious journals or other important scientific research groups).
The department is dedicated to the development of five main scientific disciplines:
- social geography and regional development
- regional and political geography
- geography education
- global migration and development studies
- social epidemiology
Other Activities of the Department
The department has more than 30 academic staff and almost 80 doctoral students. Members of the department, together with doctoral students, regularly publish abroad, serve on the editorial boards of prestigious geographical and interdisciplinary journals, participate in the setting of public policies, appear in the media and are involved in the popularization of geography (e.g., through the International Geographical Olympiad and the publication of the journal Geografický Časopis). They contribute to international discussions mainly through research on the post-socialist transformation and the integration of the post-socialist countries into European and global structures.
The department offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral studies (more information can be found under the ‘Studies’ tab).
The department maintains a large number of international contacts. Through these contacts, it carries out a variety of educational activities:
- Since 1994, in co-operation with Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA, a group of American students have been taught courses on the transformation of the Czech Republic and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe and their integration into European structures.
- Since 2016, co-operation with the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, has led to the Summer Seminar on Migration Studies, which covers immigration issues in the Czech Republic and the United States, and a number of other events such as short-term summer schools.
History of the Department
Although a separate department of social geography and regional development in its current form was only established after 1990, the history of social geography (formerly known as anthropogeography) at Charles University is considerably longer. It starts with the establishment of the Institute of Geography in 1891, then still in the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, and with people who devoted themselves to important topics in the field of geography. These were mainly Prof. Viktor Dvorský and Dr Julie Moscheles. One professor, Václav Švambera, was completely exceptional. He led the Geographical Institute from 1908 and was instrumental in building the institute in Albertov (where it was moved in 1913), both in the physical sense of organizing the construction as well as in a scientific and educational sense. Prof. Švambera also founded the State Map Collection of Czechoslovakia. In 1953, after the division of the Department of Geography into two new departments, Prof. Jaromír Korčák became the first head of the newly created Department of Economic and Regional Geography, which he gradually built up. The department is now led by Dr Libora Krajíček, Prof. Martin Hampl, Dr Ivan Bičík, Dr Zdenek Cermák, Prof. Dušan Drbohlav and Prof. Dagmar Dzúrová, who developed it into a world-renowned centre of geographical research.
