Martin Bares at Prague Castle. Credit: Zuzana Bönisch, Hrad.cz.
Prague, July 20 (CTK) – President Petr Pavel today appointed neurologist Martin Bares, 54, as the rector of the Masaryk University in Brno, the second largest university in the Czech Republic, for another four years, upon the proposal of the school’s Academic Senate.
Bares, who was the only candidate for the post, received the support of the Academic Senate in April.
In his speech after the appointment, he stressed that the university had, along with its educational and research role, also a social role and should defend freedom and democracy.
Bares’s first term ends on August 31, and he is to head the university for the next four years.
A total of 33,000 people study at the ten faculties of Masaryk University, the second largest in the country after Charles University in Prague.
Bares said the university achievements and successes would not have been possible and even conceivable without the Czech Republic’s anchoring in the free world and its involvement in Western organisations.
Under Bares’s leadership, the university helped students from Belarus and war refugees from Ukraine after the Russian invasion, and it also became the new home of Russian exiled historian Andrey Zubov, a critic of the Kremlin policy.
Before becoming the rector in September 2019, Bares, a professor of neurology, served as a vice-rector for many years, and briefly as the dean of the university’s Faculty of Medicine.
Bares noted he would not like to make big changes in the team of his close collaborators in the university leadership, but he mentioned strengthening the role of women.
In the second half of May, he appointed Jana Fialova, the wife of Prime Minister Petr Fiala (Civic Democrats, ODS), as the vice-rector for student affairs and external relations. Fialova works at the Institute of Public Health of Masaryk University’s Faculty of Medicine, and she also occupied the post of the vice-dean for student affairs at this faculty.
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