STARS Scholarship Programme for Talented Doctoral Student Launched at the Faculty of ****************************************************************************************** * STARS Scholarship Programme for Talented Doctoral Student Launched at the Faculty of Sci ****************************************************************************************** “Educating doctoral students is one of the main priorities of the Faculty of Science”, say Vojtěch Ettler, Ph.D., Vice-Dean for doctoral programmes at the faculty. This priority gav STARS programme. The word STARS is mostly commonly associateDoc. RNDr. Vojtěch Ettler, Ph.D., stars and the entertainment industry. What proděkan pro doktorské studium PřF at the faculty? UK It’s the acronym of the phrase describing the goal of our programme: to Support Talented PhD Research Students. We have come up with many names, but this is the one that stuck. Also, the programme aims to bring up new “stars” of research in natural science, so the name fits really well. What were the main reasons for starting the STARS programme? We realized that the involvement of young people is a great asset for any research conduct faculty. It is obvious that doctoral students are among the most hard-working and most eff of research teams. At the same time, by taking part in top research teams, they gain the e knowledge they will need in their future careers. That’s why the faculty considers working students one of its priorities. In the past twenty years, we have seen a decline in population and many private institutio education have opened, leading to competition in attracting students. Is it difficult to a prospective doctoral students? Recruiting talented applicants is not easy, not even for the top research teams. Prospecti students also tend to decide according to the financial conditions the school can provide. our faculty is in most cases not the only institution that offers doctoral programmes in t fields – there’s a competition with other universities and research institutions. That’s w offer financial support to talented students in the form of faculty scholarships. How does this system work? The extra scholarship of 10,000 CZK will be granted monthly. Half of it will be provided b the other half by the research project the student will be working on. The faculty will co 5,000 CZK during the standard duration of the programme. The team will do the same, statin which sources he will provide the funding. Participation of the research team in the fundi is essential. With the scholarship granted by the university, it adds up to 16,000 CZK per first year student, which is not bad at all. What are the next steps, now that the programme has been launched? Starting in the academic year 2011/2012, the Dean of the faculty will establish 30 positio scholarships. Any of the faculty’s research teams could join the programme until mid-Janua and provide the outlines of doctoral research topics. Based on the quality of the outlines 30 projects will be selected by section research committees and the faculty research commi projects will be published on the faculty’s website and students will be able to apply the application. Who can apply for a STARS scholarship? Prospective doctoral students from both Czech Republic and abroad can apply. We would be h applications from abroad to make the doctoral programme an international one. We will we s will already get some this year. How do you select the candidates? The selection process is organized by the individual research teams or groups. The selecte naturally have to file a regular Ph.D. application at the faculty and pass the standard in section committees of the faculty’s doctoral programmes. The process of selecting prospect candidates is then something like a first round – a pre-selection.  (Marie Kohoutová) Translation: Jaroslav Švelch Veškeré informace o programu STARS jsou k dispozici na http://www.natur.cuni.cz/stars [ UR www.natur.cuni.cz/stars"]