On Monday, September 15, 2025, the Dean of ECON MUNI, Professor Jiří Špalek, honoured the best scientists. This year, the Dean's Awards were presented in seven categories and were received by 27 researchers.
Three changes were made to the Dean's Awards this year. The first and largest change was the creation of a new category for long-term contribution to education. In addition, the category for innovation in teaching has been changed to now include outstanding teaching activities. Last but not least, the conditions for awarding the prize for an outstanding dissertation thesis have changed – following a change in the study and examination regulations, it is no longer necessary to nominate only theses graded A.
Dr Daniel Stašek won the Dean's Award for Outstanding Dissertation Thesis defended in 2024. The thesis is entitled High-frequency data and volatility prediction.
The Dean's Award for the Best Result with Social Relevance was awarded to team of the project entitled Creation and implementation of tools for data-driven decision-making on prevention and provision of health and social care: use of microsimulation and a modular eHealth system. The awarded members are Dr Jakub Hlávka, assoc. prof. Štěpán Mikula, Dr Michal Kvasnička, Dr Jakub Chalmovianský, Barbora Tachezyová, Hana Mlčochová and Tereza Butor for the development of the Future Elderly Model (FEM) for the Czech Republic. The award was financially supported by the faculty’s partners.
Dr Dinara Alpysbayeva won the Dean's Award for Young Scientists up to 35 Years of Age for her article Catastrophic health expenditure during healthcare financing reform: Evidence from Kazakhstan published in the Social Science & Medicine journal.
Assoc. prof. Libor Žídek was awarded the Dean's Prize for Science Popularisation for systematic popularization activities in secondary schools and media appearances.
The Dean's Award for Excellent Teaching and Innovation in Teaching went to Dr Vlastimil Reichel for modernizing statistics teaching with an emphasis on systematic student support and introducing a new course with elements of gamification, project-based learning, and other innovations. The award was financially supported by the faculty’s partners.
Dr Eva Hýblová won the Dean's Award for Long-Term Contribution to Education, which was awarded for the first time this year. She received it for her long-term teaching activities focusing on financial accounting and international financial reporting standards.
Moreover, fourteen researchers were awarded the Dean's Special Recognition for Outstanding Publication. For the article titled Nonstandard Errors published in the Journal of Finance, the award went to Dr Oleg Deev and doc. Ing. Tomáš Plíhal.
Assoc. prof. Miloš Fišar received the award for the article Reproducibility in Management Science published in the Management Science journal.
Special recognition also went to Prof. Štefan Lyócsa, Assoc. prof. Tomáš Plíhal and Assoc. prof. Tomáš Výrost for the article Forecasting day-ahead expected shortfall on the EUR/USD exchange rate: The (I)relevance of implied volatility published in the International Journal of Forecasting.
Prof. Juraj Nemec, Assoc. prof. Robert Jahoda and Assoc. prof. Ivan Malý received the special recognition for their article Performance funding of universities and its impacts on accountability: the case of the Czech Republic and Slovakia published in the Public Management Review.
Dr Dušan Mladenovič, Dr Prateek Kalia and Assoc. prof. Michal Jirásek were awarded for their article entitled The power of electronic Word of Mouth in inducing adoption of emerging technologies published in the Technology in Society journal.
The special recognition was also awarded to Dr Magdalena Adamus for the article Conspire to one's own detriment: Strengthening HPV Program Support Through Debunking Epistemically Suspect Beliefs published in the Applied Psychology-Health and Well Being journal.
Dr Hana Fitzová and Assoc. prof. Vilém Pařil received the special recognition for their article Entry and competition in the European bike-sharing industry published in the Transport Policy journal.
Finally, the first place in the competition for the Dean's Award for the Best Publication of 2024 was awarded to Dr Luca Fumarco for the article entitled Gender Identity-, Race-, and Ethnicity-Based Discrimination in Access to Mental Health Care: Evidence from an Audit Correspondence Field Experiment published in the American Journal of Health Economics.
We warmly congratulate all the winners and thank them for their excellent work!
