News
URRlab offers placements for international students. The first of our visitors is Vicente from Brazil who is interested in urban geography. He currently focuses on material and symbolic transformations in Rio de Janeiro of the last decades. Together with others, he seeks for the main stakeholders and processes that re-organise the setting and functioning of urban areas, particularly the central ones. He came to visit Prague for a comparison with European urban environment. Another visiting student is Júlia who we are awaiting in May.
A call is now open to become a STAR by applying for a funded PhD position in our research team! The PhD position will be an integral part of a research project “History and future of housing estates: quality of residential environment and residential satisfaction” funded by the Czech Science Foundation. This project aims to bring new empirical knowledge about housing estates in Czech cities using a comparative perspective and a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. The deadline for application is March 13, 2020. More information to be found here.
Monday brought a pre-Christmas present from the Czech Ministry of Culture to URRlab. We are delighted to announce that the team around Martin Ouředníček was awarded a 4-year grant for the project entitled Prague suburbs: the dynamics of social environment within the growing metropolis. In the project, we will delve into the history of Prague suburbs from industrialisation until the present day. Research in archives and the first cartographic use of some statistical data will produce a rich collection of data sets, specialised maps, an exhibition, and a bilingual atlas.
Two Urrlab associates, Lucie Pospíšilová and Jiří-Jakub Zévl, won the Dean's award at the gala concert of the Faculty of Science. Congratulations! For details click here.
Lucie Pospíšilová is an assistant professor at the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development and a key member of the URRlab research team. Her research deals with the application of time-space concepts, spatial mobility and everyday life in urban studies. At present, her research topics also include the experience of the visually impaired with urban space. In recent years, books in which she has participated as an author or editor have received various awards. Her latest achievement under the title Geography by 'the Edge': Everyday Spatiotemporal Experiences published by Karolinum Publishing in 2019 is still awaiting its prize.
Jiří-Jakub Zévl graduated from the master's program in Social geography and regional development. In 2016/17 he received the Prof Jaroslav Heyrovský's award for his bachelor thesis. In his diploma thesis he focused on the innovative use of mobile operators data for delimiting the boundaries of the metropolitan area of Prague which are changing in time. He developed the theoretical concept of a pulsating and cyclically changing time-space region. In addition to his studies, Jiří-Jakub is the organizer of the One World project at the Geographical Institute of the Faculty of Science and one of the founders of the Million Moments for Democracy association.
New paper by Marie Horňáková and Jana Jíchová was recently published in Journal of Housing and the Built Environment. Entitled Deciding where to live: case study of cohousing-inspired residential project in Prague, the piece focuses on the process of selecting a new place of residence located in the inner city of Prague. Apart from residential decision-making, the authors also highlight the emergence of reurbanisation in Czechia and discuss some implications of the cohousing-inspired project on urban planning.
Martin Ouředníček, Adam Klsák and Jiří Nemeškal attended an international seminar „Suburban revolution and peripheral urban territories in the post-Soviet space", which took place between 14-17 November in the more than 7000 km distant city Ulan-Ude (Republic of Buryatia, Russia). Their joint lecture was entitled „Czech suburbanization in the post-transformation era – the development, evaluation and challenges.“ We would like to thank organizers (namely Anatoliy Breslavsky and Konstantin Grigorichev) for the invitation, a warm welcome, and perfectly organized conference, and also to all participants for their interesting contributions (in general from diverse urban environments and contexts) and for creating a very friendly and inspiring atmosphere throughout the event.We look forward to future cooperation and meetings!
Petra Špačková succeeded in the grant competition of the Czech Science Foundation (category of social and human sciences) with her three-year project "History and future of housing estates: quality of residential environment and residential satisfaction." Within this category, she was one of four successful applicants from the Faculty of Science. Big congratulations to Petra as well as to her co-applicant Slávka Ferenčuhová from Czech Academy of Sciences! We look forward to the results of the exciting new project!
Eight URRlab members participated in the 8th International Urban Geographies of Post-communist States Conference (CAT-ference) in Belgrade, Serbia. We would like to thank organizers for the successful event (both professionally and socially). We look forward to attending the next edition of CAT-ference in Budapest!
On 13th and 14th September, Marie Horňáková, Jan Sýkora and Adam Klsák took part in the 11th edition of the International Student and Early Career Conference New Wave (organized by Geografický ústav PřF MU in Brno). Marie and Jan prepared for the conference two papers together ("Residential mobility of young families in the Prague metropolitan region" and "Neighbourhood Change Dynamics of Prague Inner city"), Adam presented his work with Jiří Nemeškal and Nina Dvořáková dealing with "Contemporary trends in population change and migration in Central Bohemia".
The ENHR 2019 conference was held in Athens, Greece at the end of August, this time with the subtitle "Housing for the next European social model". Marie Horňáková and Jan Sýkora presented their working paper "Residential mobility of young families in the Prague Metroplitan Area" and Petra Špačková collaborated on the paper "Ethnic differences in mobility mobility and its impact on neighborhood change in high-rise Housing estates of Tallinn, Estonia".