Prague, May 2 (CTK) – President Milos Zeman and Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) attended the official opening of a new building of the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics (CIIRC) of the Technical University (CVUT) in Prague on Tuesday.
CVUT Rector Petr Konvalinka, CIIRC head Vladimir Marik and other academics took part in the ceremony as well.
The educational and research centre will serve as a central top research institute to cover a wide spectrum of technical fields. It should support the industry digitisation, which belongs to the priorities of the current centre-left government of the CSSD, ANO and Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL).
Sobotka has reminded that the Czech Republic is an industrial country. “The way we will manage the digitisation process will indicate whether we will remain a competitive country in the future as well,” he said.
About 140 employees will move to the new building for 1.5 billion crowns now and the CVUT rector’s office will follow by the end of May. Some 350 people might work in the building in five years. The building’s background areas can serve 1650 people, including many students.
The CIIRC would like to attract new scientists, also from abroad.
The CIIRC was established in 2013. Its employees previously worked at various CVUT workplaces in Prague.
The construction of a modern low-energy building started in November 2014. The original five-storey technical student’s canteen was rebuilt into a seven-storey building.
The CVUT was seeking European subsidies from the Research and Development for Innovations operational programme for the project, but because of its complex character and a tense deadline, the subsidy was eventually allocated by the government from the state budget.
The state paid one billion crowns and the CVUT added some 400 million.
