The Urban and Regional Laboratory (URRlab) is a working group of researchers, educators and doctoral students of the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development. The main goal of the working group is the sharing and discussion of topics related to research and practical problems of cities, settlements, regional development and related fields from the position of social geography. The team operates on the basis of jointly implemented research projects of basic and applied research. Members of the research team publish in leading domestic and international journals. The results of applied research are mainly specialized maps, methodologies and also the web portals www.suburbanizace.cz and www.atlasobyvatelstva.cz. Team members have published several edited professional books, a monothematic magazine issue and a bilingual map atlas. Theoretical and empirical research is used in university teaching in lectures for Czech and foreign-language audiences. The flagship of lectures at the faculty is the Urban Social Geography I and II course.
The Transport Geography Research Center (CeDoG) at the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development of the Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague is an informal platform for academic staff, postgraduate students and external collaborators who are dedicated to research topics in the economic geography of transport. The members of the transport geography center have long been dedicated to research and evaluation of transport as a mechanism of changes in the organization of society, using the example of the Czech settlement and regional system. Professional works focus mainly on analyzes of geographical conditions of transport, interaction in the settlement system, evaluation of transport accessibility, commuting of residents and the effects of capacity roads on regional development. At CeDoG, research questions are solved within the implemented basic and applied research projects. Currently, attention is mainly paid to the evaluation of the intensity and structure of traffic interactions, the identification of conditioning factors, territorial differentiation in the Czech Republic and the application of basic models (interaction models, logit models).
The Center for Geographical and Environmental Education is one of the centers of the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development of the Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague. In addition to scientific and research activities in the field of basic and applied research, the members of the center are engaged in pedagogical activities at all levels of tertiary education (including doctoral studies and lifelong learning), as well as editorial and organizational activities related to the development of geographical and environmental education. Due to the nature of the problems being solved, the center has a distinctly interdisciplinary character. Team members develop cooperation not only with other departments within the geography section or sections of the Faculty of Science, but also with experts from other universities in the Czech Republic and abroad, with experts from related research institutes, with experts associated in Czech and international professional networks, and with experts from the field of decision-making and school practice.
The members of the Geographical Migration Center - GEOMIGRACE - focus on research into current processes of migration and the integration of migrants into the society of the destination migration countries. In addition to the basic monitoring of the given processes, the research activity concentrates mainly on the analysis of conditions, mechanisms and impacts of international migration and integration of foreigners, especially in the Czech Republic in the wider Central European context, with an emphasis on the situation of post-Soviet and Vietnamese immigrants. The secondary area of research is the internal migration of the population, as well as other forms of population mobility. In addition to focusing on basic research, the members of the center also work on studies of an applied nature, mainly aimed at the analysis of Czech migration policy. The research is based on an interdisciplinary approach with an emphasis on the geographical aspects of the issue. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used, especially in combination with each other. The results of research activities are published in professional journals at home and abroad. In the last four years, the research results were also used in the publication of 3 books.
The GeoQol Center offers basic and applied research on current social phenomena and processes in the field of health, quality of life and lifestyle in the Czech Republic and in the European area - transfer of knowledge into practice (public administration and businesses for short-term and long-term planning and decision-making). The research is focused on the study of socio-spatial inequalities at different scale levels of territorial division, namely at the level of municipalities (in the case of large cities, then also at the level of city districts), regions, the state, including an analysis of the position in Europe. The center also represents a platform for other forms of education; postgraduate and undergraduate students are involved in project work (as part of their doctoral or master's theses). The members of the center have long-term cooperation with top foreign workplaces, but interdisciplinary cooperation within the Czech area is no less important.
Center for Economic Geography and Regional Development (CEGARR)
The Center for Economic Geography and Regional Development focuses on theoretical and conceptual approaches to the study of economic geography and regional development, primarily from the perspective of global production networks, global value chains and regional innovation systems. Among the most important research topics are the position and role of the automotive industry in transnational and global production networks, the impact of the automotive industry on regional development, the development of the automotive industry in Central Europe, the formation of regional innovation systems in the Czech Republic, regional impacts of sectoral policies, regional development trends, development studies, evaluation of regional policy initiatives and application of quantitative approaches in geography. Team members are intensively involved in research project activities.
The Leisure Geography Research Center (GeoVoČ) aims to contribute to the knowledge of reality, especially in the field of development and changes in the regional differentiation of tourism. New trends in demand and supply, current forms of tourism, impacts of tourism on the geographical environment are analyzed. In the area of lifestyle, changes in the spatial behavior of the population and territorial manifestations and impacts of leisure activities are monitored. The key topic is the long-term second home - its development, current changes, trends and predictions. The broader framework consists of research on the regional identity of actors in the rural environment and perceptual space, and in applied studies, the influence of the mentioned phenomena and processes on local and regional development. Another of the specific topics investigated within the GeoVoč center is also the shopping and consumer behavior of the population and the phenomenon of the consumer society in general, taking into account the current trends of sustainable consumption.
Center for Research in Cultural and Historical Geography (KUHIG)
The Center for Research in Cultural and Historical Geography (KUHIG) is a working research team of employees of the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Prague in Prague. It focuses on research in the fields of cultural and historical geography, religious geography, environmental history and the history of geography. And above all to the questions of identity, heritage and religion as they extend especially to the thematic areas of regional geography, research on changes in the landscape and settlement, institutionalization and development of regions, geographical education. In the applied sphere, team members connect their activities primarily with the areas of cultural and natural heritage protection and regional development. The members of the center are involved in the activities of a number of professional societies, participate in research and organizational activities within international structures, preparation and organization of seminars and conferences. Cooperation with domestic and foreign institutions of a similar focus has been developed for a long time, but above all with the Historical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, v.v.i. (Research Center of Historical Geography).
Research Center for Land Use Changes in the Czech Republic (LUCC Czechia)
The center is focused on research into long-term landscape changes. For this, it uses an original database on the use of areas for approximately 9,000 comparable territorial units in the Czech Republic over the past 170 years, which was created by a team of collaborators. In addition, the team members analyze the changes in the use of the landscape in the model territories of the Czech Republic through field research, using remote sensing data and archive materials.
The key topic of the research is the regional differentiation of land use and the gradually forming typological regions similar to the structure of land use and its development and the analysis of the driving forces of landscape change. The team analyzes the topics in the context of the development of landscape use in the Central European and global context. The center participates in research, organizational activities and conferences organized by the IGU/LUCC commission, which the head of the center has chaired since 2006, and other scientific networks (ESEH, ASEH, IALE).
The Center for Research on Regional and Political Geography (REGPOL) is currently being formed at the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Charles University, and its current activities are mainly related to the works of P. Dostál. He focuses his research efforts on regional integration and differentiation tendencies in the Czech Republic in the context of Europe and globalization processes. The main objective of the newly formed working group is to share and discuss topics of regional, political and cultural geography with an emphasis on their solutions at different and interconnected geographical/scale levels. The main topics that this working group will focus on are: 1) regional integration and differentiation processes in the Czech Republic with an emphasis on center-periphery relations; 2) integration and differentiation tendencies in Europe with an emphasis on the European Union and socio-economic, institutional and cultural processes; 3) globalization processes with an emphasis on socio-economic, political and cultural processes and changing international relations; 4) developing countries in the context of the global system.
The Rural Geography Research Center is focused on investigating the mechanisms of spatial polarization with an emphasis on studying and solving the problems of the development of peripheries. A separate research topic is public administration in the countryside in connection with transformation and integration processes in agriculture. Another part of the research team's work is represented by studies focused on the issue of second housing and recreation as factors of rural development. Rural development is understood as an endogenous process with an emphasis on the human and social capital of the countryside and at the same time as an exogenous process with an emphasis on the role of actors/subjects of rural development and on the study of tools for the development of rural areas and rural communities. The members of the research team present the results of their work in the form of standard scientific publications and further make the individual results available to the wider public in the form of publications and articles in professional journals focused on the issue of rural development. Every year they organize a professional seminar "Venkov".
The Center for Urban and Regional Research (CVMR) is an informal association of scientists, PhD students and students engaged in basic and applied urban and regional research. The center aims to contribute to the knowledge of reality in particular in the following areas:
Changes in the spatial organization of metropolitan areas and the settlement system of the Czech Republic
Dynamically changing and problematic city locations (brownfields, suburban zone, socially excluded locations)
Processes of transformation of the spatial organization of cities (revitalization, gentrification, suburbanization)
Local development and its regulation in urban regions
The research focuses primarily on those aspects of the formation and development of cities and regions that are risky from the point of view of the long-term development of society, threaten sustainable and inclusive development, and should therefore be the subject of public interest and wider social discussion about the directions of current development. An important part of the work is also the search for possibilities of prevention or correction of identified problems.