Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague

The Czech University of Life Sciences is a public university (according to Act No. 111/1998 Coll. on universities). Currently there are 27 public universities and 2 state universities in the Czech Republic. Both public and state universities are financed by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. However, public universities are managed by their Rectors’ Board and an Academic Senate, whereas state universities are managed by the relevant Ministries (i.e. Ministry of the Interior for the Police Academy, and Ministry of Defence for the University of Defence). First lectures on agricultural sciences were delivered at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Prague Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague in 1776. A Department of Agriculture was subsequently established at the Czech Polytechnics in 1812. First lectures in forestry sciences were then given in autumn of 1848. The actual history of the university begins in 1906 with the establishment, by decree of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I, of a Faculty of Agriculture at the Czech Polytechnics in Prague. Professor Julius Stoklasa, a renowned specialist in soil chemistry, became the first Dean of the Faculty. From its very outset (1906/1907), the Faculty developed its own vital activity, based to a large part on the selflessness of its teachers and students. WW1 temporarily halted the development of the Faculty, but with the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, the Faculty started to develop in a very dynamic way. Reforms in the sphere of education in the newly founded Czechoslovak Republic led to structural changes of the Czech Polytechnics (renamed Czech Technical University in Prague in 1920). The Faculty of Agriculture was transformed in 1920 into a College of Agriculture and Forest Engineering. It was still part of the Czech Technical University. The College of Agriculture and Forest Engineering was initially situated in Prague 2 district, in the Gröbe Villa in Havlíčkovy sady. In 1936 it moved to a new building, near the Czech Technical University, in Prague 6 – Dejvice district.