Science and research

In 2021, the National Museum's scientific and research activities in the natural and social sciences took place in the form of basic and applied research. Within the concept of Institutional Support for Long-Term Development of a Research Organization (IP DKRVO), all 26 research areas with 100 partial and 71 controllable objectives were addressed. At the same time, the National Museum dealt with 39 projects of various grant programmes and focuses. Resulting in almost 300 reported results in the Register of Information on Results (RIV). Among them we can find 149 articles published in prestigious, high impact factor journals and 15 books. As far as the results of applied research go, in 2021, for example, 3 specialized public databases, 1 specialized map with professional content and 1 methodology were used. The staff also presented the results of their academic or research activities at professional conferences, seminars and workshops. Out of the total number of 58 presentations, some of which took place online, 32 were presented at domestic and 26 at foreign events.

One of the most significant scientific discoveries made by the National Museum in 2021 is the discovery in the field of modern man's genome reconstruction. An international team of scientists, which included experts from the National Museum and the Faculty of Science at the Charles University, determined that a man from the Koněprus Caves probably carries the oldest genome of anatomically modern people in Europe. The genetic information of a fossil skull of a woman from the National Museum (known as the Golden Horse) shows longer stretches of Neanderthal DNA than the 45,000-year-old individual from Ust'-Ishim in Siberia, who used to have the oldest known human genome. Suggesting that this is the new oldest reconstructed genome of modern men.

Within the framework of the project activities, employees participated in 9 projects of the Czech Grant Agency (GAČR) and 6 projects of applied research and development of the national and cultural identity (NAKI). One new project of GAČR and one new project of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TAČR) were obtained with the start in 2021. A new two-year cycle of internal grants (2021-2022) supporting young researchers under the age of 35 was also launched. A total of 8 internal scientific projects and 2 interdisciplinary projects were awarded, with the start date in 2021.

Project and professional activities also took place outside the professional units of the National Museum. Examples of this include one applied research project of the NAKI grant programme to be carried out in 2021 within the Department for Central Collection and Exhibition Activities and one newly acquired project within the Department of Digitisation and Information Systems. These departments are also involved in addressing research objectives through institutional support.