Lenda Scholarship recipient chose medicine during his military service
The scholarship intended for Norwegian students was awarded to Markus Strand Pilskog from Ålesund. He is its third recipient.
Masaryk University has joined the European Erasmus+ project called ETHICS, which aims to improve the quality of research in Georgia by introducing standards of research ethics and integrity according to good practice in the EU. Together with three other European partners, we share our experience in the field of research ethics with the Georgian partners of the project, which are 10 Georgian universities and 3 state institutions. The project is managed by Ilya State University of Georgia.
The project was officially launched at the beginning of May with a kick-off meeting organized by the 1st Faculty of Medicine of Charles University in Prague. Apart from discussing the project meetings, the agenda included lectures and a study visit where representatives of the European partners shared their recommendations and examples of good practice. Individual working groups will work on the development of a research integrity module, rules and standards for research ethics and integrity, training for researchers and other sub-objectives of the project. Experts from Masaryk University are involved in the project activities, especially from the Institute of Medical Ethics of the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Informatics and the Faculty of Social Studies.
"The project is interesting for Masaryk University for two reasons. The first reason is the opportunity to transfer our own good practice to our colleagues in Georgia. This means putting such examples together and describing them well. We will be able to use these materials within the university either to improve our own processes or to improve internal communication. Specifically, this includes, for example, the prevention of plagiarism, an area in which MU has long excelled in the Czech Republic, or the functioning of the MU Research Ethics Committee, which is more or less standard from a Western perspective, but does not have such a tradition in the Czech or Eastern European area. The second benefit for MU is the cooperation with prestigious foreign partners - the VU in Amsterdam and the European Network for Academic Integrity. Cooperation on the project outputs will allow us to gain insight into the functioning of processes and procedures related to academic ethics in Western European partners, which is an opportunity for adapting the functioning mechanisms to the environment of Masaryk University," describes the project's principal investigator Mgr. Tomáš Foltýnek, Ph.D.
The scholarship intended for Norwegian students was awarded to Markus Strand Pilskog from Ålesund. He is its third recipient.
“We have proven that the results of our research groups have a direct impact on practice and on the lives of our patients,” said Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Masaryk University, Jaroslav Štěrba, at the EXCELES program’s review conference held in the residence of the Mayor of the City of Prague on 2 December 2025. The event brought together key biomedical institutions from across the country. It highlighted the unique contribution of the national projects financed by the National Recovery Plan—primarily fostering collaboration instead of the previous fragmentation—to clinical practice and public health.