The aim of the newly established IOCB Tech Foundation is to support the long-term development of research, the transfer of new knowledge into practice and the popularisation of science. The fund was established by the techtransfer company IOCB Tech, a subsidiary of the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS, and for the first year of its operation it has received CZK 20 million.
“Our company has helped to put into practice a number of important discoveries and it goes without saying that we return part of the profits to science. We concentrate on projects that have great potential for the whole society and need money immediately, or are very difficult to find funding for. The new endowment fund will allow us to develop this support in a long-term and systematic way,” explains Martin Fusek, Managing Director of IOCB Tech, the company that set up the fund.
The fund will finance a wide range of projects. It will focus on helping specific scientists and projects or on attracting foreign researchers to Czech science. It will also support study visits and exchange of experiences between scientists and students or stimulating projects aimed at popularising science and its contribution to society.
“Direct support for specific projects and scientists is extremely important, as is the effort to ensure that their findings ultimately benefit society. It is my sincere hope that the Fund will contribute to the emergence of a number of exciting discoveries, ideas and projects that highlight the importance of science and its results in our lives,” says Barbara Eignerová, Chair of the Fund’s Board of Trustees.
Initially, the fund will support the cooperation of Czech scientists and students with experts from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), the development of gene therapy by a Czech scientist at Columbia University (USA), cooperation with the Jaroslav Heyrovský Foundation aimed at finding talented students, internships of Czech students in Israel or sending PhD students from the Faculty of Science of Charles University to foreign internships.
The IOCB Tech Foundation will thus continue the philanthropic activities of its parent company IOCB Tech s.r.o., which has distributed over CZK 50 million in the past 3 years alone.