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MASH Junior Star 2024 winners announced

The Grant Agency of Masaryk University (GAMU) has announced the names of two young scientists who will receive MASH Junior Star grants for promising MU researchers who have recently completed their postgraduate studies.

Lenka Sentenská's research deals with the reproductive strategy of spiders of the genus Latrodectus.

The winners of the competition are Lenka Sentenská, who focused on the reproductive strategy of spiders of the genus Latrodectus, and Pia Jurček, who won with her chemistry project focusing on the development of light-switchable cages that could be used in catalysis and as reaction vessels. Both researchers work at the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University.

Young scientists from Masaryk University had until the end of November to apply for the GAMU MASH Junior Star competition if they had applied for this year’s JUNIOR STAR grant from the Czech Science Foundation and were among the top twenty per cent of applicants, but their project was not funded. Masaryk University is thus offering support to talented young applicants. Thanks to GAMU, they can receive a MASH Junior Star grant providing two million crowns per year for two years, which will enable them to prepare sufficiently to apply for a prestigious individual grant (e.g. ERC) in their field.

“We have decided to support our young scientists who were among the top 20 per cent of applicants for the JUNIOR STAR project but did not receive funding from the Czech Science Foundation, which selected 17 new projects in this year’s public competition, including three projects by young scientists from Masaryk University. Based on their evaluation, we selected candidates for the GAMU MASH Junior Star grants,” said Martin Bareš, Rector of Masaryk University.

“In order to support other excellent projects from our university, after discussion with the management of the Czech Science Foundation, we took advantage of its high-quality international evaluation of projects and on the basis of this highly selective evaluation we decided to award two more projects that will be financially supported by the Grant Agency of Masaryk University,” explained Vice-Rector for Research and Doctoral Studies Šárka Pospíšilová. “We are simplifying and accelerating the process of supporting promising projects of young researchers,” added Rector Martin Bareš.

The highly selective JUNIOR STAR competition of the Czech Science Foundation is intended for excellent scientists at the beginning of their careers, who have experience from abroad or are coming to the Czech Republic from abroad. The grant of CZK 25 million is awarded for five years and allows scientists to build a new scientific team and expand their research scope. An international panel of experts and international evaluators assess applications in an open competition. The selection of the best projects is based on the applicant’s background, professional skills and the quality of the proposed project. These criteria, corresponding to international grant competitions, are also adopted by GAMU, to which the Czech Science Foundation provides the data for the submitted proposals.

“It is great that Masaryk University has decided to use the results of our evaluation and fund researchers who have succeeded in the fierce competition of our purely international, ERC-inspired evaluation. I believe that funding based on the ‘Seal of Excellence’ is the right way to support excellent young researchers in the Czech Republic and that other institutions will follow this path in the future,” said Petr Baldrian, Chairman of the Czech Science Foundation.

The MASH Junior Star grant will help Lenka Sentenská improve and expand her current project proposal, carry out preliminary observations and better plan the project budget and timeline. The Latrodectus spiders – called black widows – are best known for the cannibalistic behaviour of their females. “Relatively little is known about the reproduction of these spiders. My project was to collect and study some understudied species from Israel, where we have contacts in the local scientific community. Sadly, even if my application for JUNIOR STAR had been successful, we would not have been able to carry out research in Israel because of the ongoing military conflict. However, the GAMU grant will allow me to explore new places where I can find and collect the spiders,” said Lenka Sentenská. Cyprus is under consideration, but Croatia and Jordan are other possibilities. “I also want to make more international contacts, which are crucial for such a project. The international project I worked on in previous years ended this year, so GAMU will allow me to return home and continue doing science,” added Lenka Sentenská.