History
The basics on which current Institute for Environmental Studies was founded go back to 1977, when the Ministry of Education established the first five-year educational program related to the environment in Czechoslovakia. In 1981, the Department of Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology was founded, which subsequently received accreditation in 1985 for the education of postgraduate students in the field of ecology. In 1987, the department started publishing the thematic series/magazine Acta Universitatis Carolinae - Environmentalica. Following a change in the name and structure of the department, the Institute for Environmental Studies was established in 1990.
Present
Currently, the Institute for Environmental Studies (IES) is one of the interdisciplinary workplaces of the Faculty of Science of Charles University. It focuses on research and studies in the field of the environment and topics related to nature conservation, climate change, ecological processes, the use of natural resources and sustainable development. It provides academic education at the bachelor's, master's and doctoral levels, where theoretical knowledge is combined with practical experience in laboratories and in the field.
The excelent technical and laboratory facilities available enable scientists and students to participate in basic and applied research in ecology, nature and landscape conservation, toxicology, forensic environmental science, waste management and other areas essential for understanding and solving current environmental problems.
The Institute also closely cooperates with domestic and foreign universities, scientific organizations and institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences, state authorities or non-governmental organizations and the private sector, mainly through joint projects or within the framework of master‘s and dissertation thesis. The Institute also actively contributes to the public debate on environmental issues through lectures, seminars, workshops and participation in scientific and popularization projects.
The European Journal of Environmental Sciences indexed in the Scopus database is published at the Institute.
Key research topics
- Ecosystem ecology and restoration
- Conservation biology and protected area management
- Atmospheric aerosol research
- Limnology, paleolimnology and hydrobiology
- Environmental technologies
- Ecotoxicology, decontamination and environmental chemistry
- Environmental forensic sciences
Excellent laboratories and workplaces
- Environmental Forensic Sciences Centre
- Laboratory of environmental chemistry and soil analysis (LECHAP)
- Laboratory of the air quality
- Water protection laboratory
- Geographic information systems laboratory
- Laboratory of limnology and microscope room
- Hydrobilogical station Velký Pálenec, Blatná