CzecHopes - the largest Czech conference for high school students, held at the Bohunice University Campus

On the 6th and 7^th of February, the CzecHopes conference, held at the Bohunice University campus, featured a series of workshops and lectures covering not only the natural sciences but also medicine, economics, business and soft skills.

4 Mar 2025 Adéla Dilhofová Kevin Francis Roche

In all, 15 lectures and 63 workshops were offered in this year's 4th CzecHopes conference. The event was attended by 450 enthusiastic high school students, who came to Brno from schools all around the Czech and Slovak Republics.

Almost all departments at Masaryk University’s Faculty of Science contributed to the conference programme. Departmental laboratories were open for exploration both the Bohunice and Kotlářská campuses.

Photo: Marcela Damborská and David Damborský

Programme provided by the Faculty of Science

Department of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics: Measuring the mass of a black hole and the Sun
Department of Condensed Matter Physics: Physical Principles of Chip Fabrication
Department of Plasma Physics and Technology: Practical Applications of Plasma Physics, Electron Microscopy for Beginners
Department of Anthropology: From sample to tracing: analysis of bones and teeth for forensic purposes
Department of Chemistry: Practical Chemistry
Department of Biochemistry: Photosynthesis in spinach
Department of Experimental Biology: The plant world under the microscope, Microorganisms around us
Department of Botany and Zoology: How to look at nature in the laboratory
RECETOX: Escape game "Chemical Pollution"
Bioscope: DNA studio

Inspiration and cooperation

Visitors to the student conference could not only enjoy the workshops and lectures but also draw inspiration from stands set up by the conference partners in the campus corridor.

The conference was organised by students of the CzecHopes non-profit organisation, in cooperation with Masaryk University’s Faculty of Science (general partner). Patronage was provided by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. Around twenty organisers and volunteers, mostly university students, helped set up and run the conference.

According to the main organiser of CzecHopes, Markéta Bučková, “seeing the students become inspired, how they discussed their future and their willingness to work on themselves, was a huge motivation for us for the coming years”.