Václav Hampl

Václav Hampl (November 2013)

Professor Václav Hampl, RNDr., Dr.Sc. (born 1962) is a Czech physiologist and, since Feb. 2006 to Jan. 2014, rector of Charles University in Prague. 2011-2014 he served as the President of the Czech rectors conference . Since 2011 he is the Board member of the European University Association, where he also serves in the Research policy working group (since 2009) and the Steering Committee of Council for Doctoral Education (since 2013). 2010-2011 he served as the Chair of the Bioethical Committee of the Czech Republic. Since 2009 he is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Europaeum (association of 10 universities promoting European studies).

Hampl was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1962 and received a PhD from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in 1990. He did postgraduate work at the University of Minnesota Medical School and, since 2002, has been a professor of physiology at Charles University in Prague. His research has focused on the pulmonary circulation and its use of nitric oxide as a signaling agent. His research publications have been cited more than 2500 times, his H-index is 22. In 2006, Hampl became the 507th rector of Charles University in Prague. After serving two four-years terms stipulated by law, he stepped down on Jan. 31, 2014, leaving the university in the hands of his elected successor Tomáš Zima.

He became publicly known mostly for successfully opposing the proposals of Minister of Health Tomáš Julínek to privatize public university hospitals in 2008, the proposals for considerably reduce academic decision-making in public universities by Minister of Education Josef Dobeš in 2012, and the successful conflict with the president of the country Miloš Zeman about president's law-given duty to nominate new university professors following the rigorous procedures at individual school.

During his rectorship three large infrastructural project were prepared and mostly completed utilizing the European structural funds - the biomedical centers in Plzeň and Hradec Králové and a biotechnology center common with six institutions of Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic - Biocev in Vestec near Prague. Charles University also acquired a large building complex "Crystal" near the location of Faculty of sports, making expansion in the direction of "mini campuses" possible. The same is true for the acquisition of a double object in Opeatalova street in the centre of Prague, where still same significant adjustments have to be done.

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