Geography at CU is one of the most highly ranked fields in the international context. It is the only UK discipline to be consistently ranked in the second fifty of the QR World University Ranking.
The COOPERATIO Programme (2022-2026) is a key programme for the conceptual development of research. The programme sets a long-term plan for research in the field of geography, provided by the Geography Section of the Faculty of Science of Charles University in the fields of physical geography and geoecology, social geography and regional development, demography, cartography and geoinformatics. The programme builds on the previous programmes of institutional support PROGRES (2017-2021) and PRVOUK (2012-2016). A team of outstanding Junior Researchers across the geographic disciplines has been supported by the UNCE University Centre of Excellence from 2012-2023, and students also have the opportunity to benefit from SRI (Specific Scientific Research) funding.
Risk processes and dynamics of changes in natural and socio-economic systems, taking place at different spatial levels, are an integrating element of the research focus of geographic departments. Research teams in these research areas address a range of diverse topics such as natural hazards and risks, hydrological extremes and runoff regimes, changes in ecological status and environmental stresses, research on mountain lakes, changes in habitats and landscape structure, and regional development issues in selected areas, urbanisation and suburbanisation, changes in the rural landscape, internal and external migration processes, current changes in demographic behaviour of the population, population forecasts, study of population climate and population policy, acquisition, processing and analysis of geo-information data, remote sensing or numerical modelling of processes.
Research teams, which coordinate research activities in individual disciplines and fields, play a decisive role in the research activities of geographic departments. The research teams are composed of academic staff, postgraduate students and external collaborators working on common research questions within the framework of ongoing basic and applied research projects. The staff of the Geographical Section of the Faculty of Science are successful researchers of many foreign and domestic research grants and projects, both theoretical and applied. Individual departments participate in a number of European research projects, including H2020, COST, INTERREG, IDEA, WCRP or ESA projects, as well as NASA projects, etc. Experts from the geographic departments are thus involved in research projects in various regions of the world, including South America, Central Asia, Svalbard or the Czech Antarctic Station of J. G. Mendel, James Roos Island. However, the focus of research activities is concentrated in Europe.
National projects are the largest contributors to the provision of research projects. These are mainly standard or junior grants of the GACR, the GACR Centre of Excellence, NAKI and applied research projects implemented within the framework of TAČR grants or contract research. Postgraduate students develop their research projects supported through GAUK.
In 2014–2015, the Geography Section received support for the modernisation of instrumentation under the OP R&D project "Development of the Faculty of Science of Charles University". From the point of view of the future perspective, the planned involvement of the above mentioned research directions in the university's Globcentrum centre of excellence is crucial, where key research teams will be able to benefit from synergies from interdisciplinary research, shared infrastructure and instrumentation capacities.