I would like to wish all members of the academic community of Charles University in Prague, teachers, students and all employees, a happy and peaceful Easter.

“Playing cowboys and Indians may have been one of our childhood games”, said Professor György Tóth, and that’s absolutely true. What we have to ask ourselves is what we know about the Native American traditions and which part of this personal knowledge is based on veritable facts.

Charles University hereby states that the rigorosum thesis, on the basis of which Mr. Andreas Scheuer received the title of PhDr. at the CU faculty of Social Sciences in 2004, has been examined for alleged plagiarism. Mr. Scheuer’s thesis was digitalised and tested using the Urkund and Theses antiplagiarism software.

In a ceremony held at Prague Castle on 21 January, the new Rector of Charles University, Professor Tomáš Zima received, together with other newly elected rectors of public universities, his decrees of appointment from the President of the Czech Republic, Miloš Zeman. Also attending the ceremony on behalf of the university were the incumbent Rector, Professor Václav Hampl, and the Chairman of the Academic Senate, Professor Jan Hála.

Theresienstadt, one of many captivating sites of Czech history, caught my research interest after my visit there arranged by the Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University. From my perspective as a student from England, history classes are bias towards American and western European studies, and the rich story of Theresienstadt is dramatically underrepresented generally in Holocaust studies along with the fruitful history of the Czech Republic.

Up until now, the investigation into alleged plagiarism has utilised, amongst other means, the Urkund tool, which compared the thesis with the contents of websites, electronic sources, archives and book databases, scientific and other tests in digital form and with no regional or language restrictions.

Charles University in Prague is in possession of one of the most valuable databases of oral history in Europe. The Visual History Archive, created through the University of Southern California by the Shoah Visual History Foundation, is a rich tapestry of primary research: witnesses, stories, testimonies, confessions of genocide survivors.

At a ceremony at the CU Scientific Council, the Rector of Charles University, Professor Václav Hampl, today gave out awards to the best graduates of the University at the annual Rector’s Awards. Professor Hampl also bestowed a Rector’s Award for Distinction. The Rector’s Awards for the best graduates of Charles University are bestowed on exceptional students in both the bachelor’s and master’s study programmes who have achieved exceptional results in the scientific, research, sports or cultural sphere.

Charles University remembered Dr. Aleš Hrdlička, one of the founding fathers of Czech and American Anthropology and the founder of the Museum of Anthropology in Prague, on the 17th October with a commemorative lecture. The lecture was delivered by Prof. Jane Buikstra from Arizona State University who is well respected in her field of Bioarchaeology and was part of workshop „Building of Czechoslovakian Anthropology“ (Budování československé antropologie) held on 17th and 18th October 2013.

On the 17th and 18th of October, the Centre of Medieval Studies hosted a conference on the financial aspects of the medieval economy. The conference, of which the Faculty of Humanities of Charles University was one of the organizers, attracted academics and scholars from across Central and Western Europe, who discussed and debated a number of topics related to the main theme.