UP Endowment Fund Supports Talented Students
The aim of the Endowment Fund, founded by Palacký University in 2015, is to support talented and gifted students. The first eleven students have received a financial contribution in order to realise their projects within one year.
For Nikol Neplechová, studying at the Department of International Humanitarian and Social Work at the Sts Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology, the support of the UP Endowment Fund represents a great experience for her. “By means of interviews with experts, I plan to find out what led prominent British humanitarian organisations to found a joint fundraising platform, and how they see this collaboration with hindsight,” she says about her project. Her sponsored research will lead to a closer linking of the university with the non-profit sector of Czech humanitarian aid.
Alena Svobodová, studying Physiotherapy, has focussed on an entirely different area. She will use a major part of her contribution from the UP Endowment Fund to acquire a professional medical translation of the examination protocol of the Neurobehavioral Assessment of the Preterm Infant. This scale is used globally and allows assessing the relative maturity and neurobehavioral condition of the newborn. “We could also use it to detect non-ideal development of infants in the Czech Republic in time, such as motor coordination disorders, attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, and learning disabilities. All these problems may originate in the early postnatal period,” claims Svobodová, a student at the Faculty of Health Sciences.
“In the first year, the UP Endowment Fund distributed €30,000, however, we want to acquire even more funds to support the student projects,” says the Fund coordinator, Dita Palaščáková. The first financial contribution came from the Česká spořitelna bank; more companies and individuals will be approached now. In addition to financial support of student projects, the Fund will also support the competency of students in communication science. In collaboration with the Student Career and Counselling Centre and the Fortress of Knowledge, a series of workshops with Czech and foreign lecturers will be organised in order to show students how to present the purpose and goal of their scientific research in a comprehensible way.
More information on the Palacký University Endowment Fund is available at www.fond.upol.cz.
