Jiří Macháček, winner of the “Česká hlava – Invence” (Czech Head) award in November, has big plans for the coming years: modernisation and completion of laboratory facilities and the creation of an archaeogenetic research centre in the BioPharma Hub.
“The new Archaeogenetics Centre will help to strengthen the resilience of Czech society, not only by exploring the origins of civilisational diseases, but above all by critically reflecting on contemporary cultural and ethnic identities,” says Jiří Macháček, head of the Department of Archaeology and Museology at the Faculty of Arts. His RES-HUM project “Ready for the Future: Understanding the long-term resilience of human culture” received a budget of 426 million Czech crowns and was the only successful project coordinated by Masaryk University.
On Sunday evening, you received the most prestigious Czech scientific award, “Česká hlava”, specifically the ABB Invention prize. What did you receive the award for and how do you feel about it?
I see winning the Invention prize, which is part of the Czech Head awards, as an opportunity to popularise and increase the visibility of the results of archaeological research at Masaryk University. Our research team at the Department of Archaeology and Museology has come a long way thanks to its inventiveness and innovations, which have brought us to the forefront of European science. This can be seen, for example, in our publications. My colleagues regularly publish in prestigious international journals. When I received the award, I felt a sense of pride in the work of archaeologists at Masaryk University.
What other notable figures have won the prize this year? Is this the first Czech Head award for a researcher from the MU Faculty of Arts?
Most of the awards went to young researchers, mainly in the fields of science and technology, such as our MU colleague Martin Toul, who works at Recetox on proteins and their use in treating strokes. However, the most important award – the National Czech Head Award – went to Professor Zuzana Moťovská, an outstanding cardiologist from Charles University and the first woman to win the award in the twenty-two year history of this competition. On the one hand, this is great news, but on the other, it is somewhat puzzling why such a prestigious award has only now been given to a woman. Unfortunately, gender stereotypes still persist in academia and there are various barriers to women's full participation in research.
The award brings a lot of publicity, which helps to popularise your research. Are you happy about that?
Yes, because popularisation is an essential part of doing science. We need to show what our work is for and why it makes sense to support science and scientists. Popularisation strategies and how to communicate our results to the general public should be systematically taught in universities.
You and your team recently succeeded in the Operational Programme Jan Amos Komenský in the Cutting-Edge Research call. Your project Ready for the Future: Understanding the Long-term Resilience of Human Culture, will focus on elucidating the basic principles of the resilience of human society in a historical perspective using long time series, and on transferring the knowledge gained into social practice. Why did you choose this topic?
The resilience of human society has recently become one of the most important research topics in the humanities and social sciences. People are increasingly aware of the fragility of civilisation and want scientists to tell them where society is going and what is threatening it. We have reached a high level of social complexity which, on the one hand, brings considerable benefits in terms of high standards of living, excellent healthcare, and the flourishing of education and culture; on the other hand, it has made our social system so complex and energy-intensive that we are struggling to keep it running. Ways are therefore being sought to consolidate it and mitigate the impact of various shocks that could destabilise it.
Most experts focus their research on current phenomena, but you are looking to the past. Why?
Social scientists, such as those associated in SYRI (the National Institute for Research on Socioeconomic Impacts of Diseases and Systemic Risks), focus on current risks and try to mitigate problems, for example by studying today's socio-economic inequalities. In contrast, our RES-HUM project, based on collaboration between the humanities and the sciences, looks to the past. However, this does not mean that it has no applications for today's world. Our research is based on the assumption that most, if not all, of the problems and crises we face today have been faced and solved by humanity in the past. Whether it is ecological crises, the effects of massive migrations, epidemics, the negative effects of disruptive technologies or local overpopulation, it is clear that the problems facing civilisation today have their origins in the deep past. Archaeology, at the heart of our project, is the only discipline that provides relevant empirical data on the social and natural processes that have affected humanity from its beginnings to the present day. Thanks to its unique methodology, archaeology can integrate knowledge from the humanities and natural sciences, which is essential for assessing human potential to cope with adverse circumstances in different historical epochs. The project is also interested in the formation of contemporary cultural identities at local and global levels, which have both positive and negative effects on society, especially when they generate societal problems such as latent racism or political or cultural imperialism. The results will also have real-world applications in reducing risks and increasing the resilience of society in a range of areas - from spatial planning, landscape design and increasing the social sustainability of neighbourhoods, to adapting to climate change and protecting against the misuse of archaeogenetic and genomic analyses by pseudo-scientific biological determinists or extreme nationalists.
You will begin your research in January 2024. Which institutions or research teams will you collaborate with?
The project will last four and a half years and five research plans, or more precisely, five research centres, will be established. These centres will bring together a wide range of planned activities involving four leading and closely collaborating research institutions and their components: Masaryk University (Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Science, CEITEC), the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS), the National Museum and the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the CAS. The project will involve both existing research infrastructures, such as the AMS/RAMSES laboratory for radiocarbon dating in archaeology and palaeoecology, Masaryk University’s archaeological field research stations and the Centre for Early Medieval Studies (CRSS), as well as newly modernised and acquired infrastructures, such as the ArcheoGen archaeogenetic laboratory in Brno.
What will the project start with, and what are its stages?
The project is transdisciplinary, which means it combines the humanities and natural sciences at a methodological and theoretical level to address questions related to the resilience of human society in a long historical perspective. The main discipline is archaeology, which naturally integrates knowledge from different disciplines. In the first research plan, we will focus on the resilience of human settlements, linking archaeology with geophysics, botany, climatology, geology and other earth sciences. The second research plan integrates biomolecular, i.e. archaeogenetic, proteomic and isotopic research with historical and archaeological interpretation to study human populations living in Central Europe, in particular their identity, health and subsistence strategies. Our third research plan deals with technological innovation and adaptation in the past from an archaeological, traceological, mineralogical, chemical and material perspective. Research plan number four will focus on the diachronic aspect of the evolution of human society, combining methods from archaeology and nuclear physics, using radiocarbon dating with the aid of AMS accelerators. Research plan five will develop the role of the humanities in addressing societal crises, offering new solutions based on modern methods of “digital humanities”, “public history” and transdisciplinary collaboration. It will also enable the integration and effective transfer of results to society through newly developed dissemination strategies.
How much money have you raised, and what will you use it for?
The total amount of financial support is around 426 million Czech crowns and, unlike in other projects, the selection committee did not cut the budget. The collaborating scientific institutions are also expected to contribute financially. The money will mainly be used to modernise and complete existing laboratories, such as the Centre for Archaeogenetic Research, which will be established in Brno in the premises of the newly built BioPharma Hub research infrastructure of Masaryk University, which provides facilities for biomedical research and, like our project, aims to increase the resilience of Czech society, especially in the area of prevention, diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases. Genetic data on historical populations in Central Europe can significantly complement and support this research.
Could you tell us more about the Archaeogenetic Research Centre? Will it be established by 2028, like the MU BioPharma Hub? What will make the centre special?
The BioPharma Hub includes a new archaeogenetics laboratory that will be the home of Zuzana Hofmanová's research group. This outstanding young scientist is currently working at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, led by the famous 2022 Nobel Laureate Svante Pääbo, and at Masaryk University as part of the FORMOR project funded by the EXPRO programme of the Czech Science Foundation. As part of our new project, the Operational Programme JAK, in collaboration with colleagues from CEITEC and the Faculties of Medicine and Science, aims to build a competitive centre that will become a leader in archaeogenetic research in our region of Europe.
And the other part of the money?
For example, the CAS Institute of Nuclear Physics in Řež u Prahy, where the first accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) laboratory in the Czech Republic is already in operation. This method is used, for example, to determine the age of archaeological objects or to trace the evolution of the climate. For our Department of Archaeology and Museology at the Faculty of Arts, it is very important that the project will enable us to upgrade and maintain our field stations. These stations study the oldest Neolithic farmers’ settlements in Těšetice-Kyjovice, the early medieval Great Moravian centres in Pohansko near Břeclav, and the medieval castle at Rokštejn near Jihlava and its surroundings. The stations will provide primary empirical data, which will then be analysed in specialised laboratories. Much of the project's funding will be used to internationalise our research and to support promising doctoral and post-doctoral students.
What will be the size of the team working on the project and what will be its main deliverables by 30 June 2028?
The team we are putting together is really big. It will involve a hundred people in a variety of positions, from PhD students to administrative staff from different institutions. The main outputs will be high-impact publications in international journals and, for example, a multimedia journal to experiment with methods of disseminating the results of humanities-oriented research to the general public. The team will therefore include professional science journalists.
Out of 74 applications, only 15 projects were successful, and yours was the only one from Masaryk University. What does this mean to you and what responsibilities this success brings to you?
The fact that we, as coordinators at Masaryk University, have been awarded funding for this highly prestigious project is a great achievement for us. We would never have achieved this without the full support of the Faculty of Arts and, above all, the university management, which is well aware that we are among the leaders in the humanities and in many respects surpass the otherwise more focused departments of our university. I believe that the MU management will continue to support humanities-oriented research in the future, and I hope that the results of our project will provide them with strong arguments to this end.
Can you put the project in an international context – in terms of its focus or its reach?
Our project is ambitious and the results should be highly competitive internationally. In its focus, it responds not only to the Czech National Research and Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialisation 2021-2027, but also to international research initiatives aimed at solving the global and local problems facing humanity. These include, for example, the EAA 2021 Kiel Declaration on Archaeology and Climate Change, adopted by the European Association of Archaeologists in 2021, which clearly states that archaeologists can contribute to understanding climate change both locally and globally. More generally, archaeology makes an important contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals as articulated by UNESCO, particularly in the areas of culture and education, food security, safety and justice, climate action, health and well-being.