Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences together with Prof. Jiří Friml (ISTA) proposed the project “MOLIPEC: Molecular Life of Plants ERA Chair” to create a research centre of excellence in plant molecular biology to improve research quality and capacity of the Biology Centre, the Czech Republic & the ERA. We identified the five most important areas for improvement to reach research excellence that are comprehensively addressed by the MOLIPEC project. These include: (1) lack of independent international advice and evaluation, (2) insufficient and non-consolidated research services and core facilities, (3) no strategy for establishment of new research groups, (4) lack of efficient mentoring, (5) low attractiveness and international visibility.
The first important objective O1 is to strengthen research leadership by establishment of the IPMB International Advisory Board (IPMB IAB) and by organising regular IPMB conferences and IPMB IAB assessment meetings. While IPMB is evaluated in accordance with the rules of the Czech Academy of Science, the institute is missing regular guidance and mentoring on leadership and research development from an international perspective. The ERA Chair as a chair of the IPMB IAB and other outstanding plant molecular biologists are helping to implement European standards of research excellence at IPMB.
Service units and core facilities, a standard at top research institutions, are missing at IPMB/BC as a relic of past research strategies. This is ineffective, increases the running costs of each group and puts extra burden on PIs to carry out basic routine tasks. The second objective O2 is to establish centralised services and core facilities to increase the quality and efficiency of available services and infrastructure to researchers and to decrease operating costs and unnecessary expenses.
The third objective O3 is to organise international recruitment of two new PIs and to establish two new research groups in plant molecular biology under the supervision of the ERA Chair to complement current research directions and increase the palette of approaches and experimental techniques at the institute.
The fourth objective O4 is to support career development and professional growth of all employees by a new mentoring programme, individual consultations, workshops, networking days, and best practice onsite consultations. The ERA Chair and members of the IPMB IAB are playing a key role in research mentoring.
Progressive research leadership, professional services, state-of-the-art core facilities, excellent research and mentoring programme have been creating a platform for fostering excellence and thus promoting IPMB international visibility. The fifth objective O5 is to ensure national and international attractiveness and visibility by new communication strategy, implementation of web, social media, podcasts to communicate research successes, organisation of plant biology seminars, events for schools and public, international workshops and conferences.
