Management Members

PhDr. Zuzana Lizcová, Ph.D.

Zuzana Lizcová focuses on German speaking countries, their role in the international context and bilateral relations with the Czech Republic. She works as a DGAS (Department of German and Austrian Studies) academic and journalist. In  2011, she completed the PhD programme International Area Studies at the IMS FSV UK with a dissertation Cultural Relations between the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and Federal Republic of Germany in the 1960s and in 2005 she completed the Master´s degree programme German and Austrian Studies. During her studies, she did an internship at the Humboldt University in Berlin with the support of the DAAD scholarship. In 2007 due to the Medien – Mittler zwischen den Völkern (The Media- Mediators between Nations) Programme of the Robert Bosch Foundation she did an internship in the Berlin newsroom of the German News Agency (dpa). In the years 2004 - 2013 she worked in the documentation office of the Czech Press Office (ČTK), where she specialized in the German-speaking countries and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. She then worked as an independent journalist, an analyst at the Association for International Affairs (AIA) and a coordinator of the Czech-German Programme for Young Professionals (CGYPP).

doc. PhDr. Jiří Vykoukal, CSc.

Doc. Jiří Vykoukal, PhDr., CSc., works at the Department of Russian and East European Studies at the Institute of International Studies. His research focuses on modern history of Central and Eastern Europe, especially on energy issues and the Soviet bloc. He is the co-author of several important publications, for example Východ: vznik, vývoj a rozpad sovětského bloku 1944-1989.

PhDr. Pavel Szobi, Ph.D.

Dr. Pavel Szobi is an expert in modern history with a focus on economic and social history, the United States, and the global South. He studied at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, where he received his education in history. He is now a researcher at the Department of North American Studies, where he researches pan-European relations and international energy contexts.

Mgr. Jan Váška, Ph.D.

Jan Váška studied International Area Studies and Western European Studies at the IMS FSV UK. He works at the Department of European Studies, where he holds the position of Deputy Head of the Department. He teaches modern history and current problems of Western Europe.

PhDr. Ondřej Žíla, Ph.D.

Ondřej Žila studied Geography at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and History at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. He completed his PhD studies in 2013 with the dissertation “Jedna si jedina, moja domovina?” Etno-demografické proměny Bosny a Hercegoviny v letech 1945–2013 (In Slovak, trans. "Are you the one and only, my homeland?” Ethno-Demographic Changes of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1945-2013) at the Institute of World History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University. In his research he focuses on contemporary history and political geography of the countries of former Yugoslavia, especially Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since 2014, he has been employed as Assistant Professor at the Department of Russian and East European Studies at the Institute of International Studies, FSV UK. In his research he is currently addressing the issue of Sarajevo's reintegration after the end of the war in early 1996 and its consequences. He is a member of the PRIMUS Research Team (Project name: Za hranice hegemonických narativů a mýtů. „Pohnutá minulost“ v dějinách a paměti středovýchodní a jihovýchodní Evropy [in Czech, trans. Beyond the Hegemonic Narratives and Myths, "Unsettled History" in the History and Memory of the Middle East and South East Europe]), the co-researcher on the project UNCECentrum for Transdisciplinary Research on Violence, Trauma and Justice and the principal investigator of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), (Project name: Bosenská (prou)dění: Každodenní usouvztažňování války, postsocialismu a neoliberaliazace v daytonské Bosně a Hercegovině [in Czech, trans: Bosnian Flux: Everyday Correlations of War, Post-Socialism and Neoliberalism in Daytona Bosnia and Herzegovina]). He has more than ten years of experience in teaching history, geography, geography, and a political geography seminar at the Prague Grammar School (Arabic, Nad Vítěznou Pláni).

prof. PhDr. Michal Kubát, Ph.D.

He is the Chairman of the Department Board of the PhD Study Programme of the International Area Studies Programme and is the Academic Supervisor of the programme. Michal Kubát graduated from Political Science at the Institute of Political Studies of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. He participated in a yearly study abroad programme at the Jagiellonian Institute of Political Sciences, University of Krakow. At present he is a professor of political science at the FSV UK. In the years 2010-2016 he held the position of Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Science and Research and PhD Studies, in 2011-2015 he was Head of the Department of Russian and Eastern European Studies at the Faculty. He specializes in comparative political science (mainly democratic and undemocratic political regimes and political parties) and the political systems of Central European countries. He published a large number of specialized monographs in Czech, English, Polish and German. He is the author of many professional journals, compilations of studies by various authors and articles and also of several professional translations from Polish.

prof. PhDr. Ota Konrád, Ph.D.

Ota Konrád is Associate Professor of Modern History at Charles University in Prague. Previously, he was also the Head of the Department of German and Austrian Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences (2012 - 2019). He deals with the history of humanities, the history of foreign policy and the history of the First World War in Central Europe. He is a co-author of the book (together with Rudolf Kučera) Cesty z apokalypsy: Fyzické násilí v pádu a obnově střední Evropy 1914 - 1922 (2018) [in Czech, trans. Ways from the Apocalypse: Physical Violence in the Fall and Restoration of Central Europe 1914-1922], which deals with the cultural history of violence in Austria, the Czech Lands and South Tyrol in the First World War aftermath. He is currently preparing an extensive project on collective violence as a tool for changing national identities at the end of World War II in Europe.

PhDr. David Emler, Ph.D.

David Emler graduated from the Ph.D. (cotutelle Ph.D.) in the field of Modern History (Charles University) and Political Sciences (Université Paris Nanterre). He had graduated from West European Studies (PhDr. and Mgr.) and International Area Studies (Bc.) beforehand at Charles University. He also studied at Sciences Po, Paris and the Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3. Since 2009, he has been employed full time as an assistant at the Institute of International Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. Previously he worked in the foreign editorial office of the Czech Press Office and at the Protocol Department of the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic. The topics of his publications and lectures include the fields of historiography, collective memory, and the use of the past. He also deals with contemporary French history, French-German relations and cultural history of Central Europe.

PhDr. Zuzana Kasáková, Ph.D.

She studied West European Studies at the Institute of International Studies at the FSV UK, where she also received a doctorate. She also studied at a number of foreign universities - the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Glasgow and the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 2004 she graduated from the Scottish National Party in the British Parliament, and five years later at Europaeum, the University of Oxford.

Since 2005 she has lectured at the Institute of International Studies, FSV UK. In 2012-2014 she was the Chairwoman of the Academic Senate of the FSV UK. Since June 2015 she has been Vice-Dean for Foreign Relations at the FSV UK. She is also an external researcher at the EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy.

She deals with the political development and the history of the United Kingdom (especially the so-called Celtic margin), the EU history and institutions, the EU regional policy, collective memory, regionalism and nationalism of the so-called "Nations without a State" in Europe.

prof. PhDr. Lenka Rovná, CSc.

She founded and led the Department of West European Studies IMS. She was the Academic Supervisor of the West European Studies and Jean Monnet Center of Excellence in European Studies (the first of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe). She addresses current issues of the European Union and cultural studies of the United Kingdom and Canada. She lectured at Canadian universities in Ontario, Québec and Calgary. She was a member-alternate representative of the Czech government in the creation of the EU Constitutional Treaty. In 2004, she was named by the French President as the Knight of the National Order for merit in favor of European affairs. She also holds the Jean Monnet Chair Ad Personam for European Political Studies. She is a member of the Scientific Council of the Helsinki University, CERGU University in Gothenburg in Sweden, ECSA-Canada in Montreal, an evaluator of the European Commission's Jean Monnet Programme and Horizon 2020 and a member of the UNESCO Commission.