Prague, Sept 30 (CTK) – The key information system for Czech research will start operating after four months next week again, Deputy Prime Minister for Science, Pavel Belobradek, told a press conference on Friday.
Czech universities and researchers criticised the absence of the system that comprises all data on research projects, their funding, results and state subsidies. Czech ministries could not pay out the financial support for research, the universities said.
Belobradek said anybody who needed data from the system in the past four months, received them individually.
In June, the system stopped operating after more than ten years because the Government Office failed to reach an agreement on the conditions of its further operation with the operator, InfoScience Praha and the Consortium of the Czech Technical University (CVUT).
Belobradek said the Government Office developed a new system in four months and saved a lot of money. No payments or data have been threatened, he said.
The annual running costs of the system are estimated at four million crowns, while in the previous years the system’s operation cost approximately ten million crowns, Belobradek said.
The Government Office owns all the equipment as well as the copyright for the system.
Belobradek said the Government Office is still negotiating with the former operator about its work.
He said the contract was not extended because the conditions were inadequate and questionable from the legal point of view.
Most of the system is operating already now. Its full operation will resume next week.
Belobradek presented two new deputy chairmen of the Government Council for Research, Development and Innovations on Friday.
Masaryk University Vice Rector Petr Dvorak is the new first deputy chairperson of the council. He replaced Senator Eva Sykova who was dismissed for an affair related to payments from patients included in stem cell treatment earlier this year.
The other new deputy chairman is Pavel Baran, head of the Institute of Philosophy at the Czech Academy of Sciences.