INSTITUTE OF SOCIOLOGY OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC PUBLIC RESEARCH INSTITUTION
The organisation
IS AS CR is a non-university public research institute, belonging to the AS CR. IS is a leading social science research Institution in the Czech Republic based in Prague. The IS AS CR currently employees 57 full time and part time researchers in the pursuit of research into contemporary society and in the provision of post-graduate education in the field of sociology. It conducts ongoing and one-time empirical surveys, comparative research studies, public opinion surveys, and case studies, applying modern qualitative and quantitative research methods, and it also cultivates the development of sociological theory and methodology. Research at the Institute also makes use of information, concepts and methods drawn from related scholarly fields, such as economics, law, political science, demography, social geography, and gender studies. The IS AS CR also comprises the Sociological Data Archive, leading CEE institution in storage and analysis of quantitative and qualitative social science data and the Public Opinion Research Centre (CVVM).
Relevant skills/experience/technologies
The IS AS CR team is multidisciplinary covering three relevant areas: qualitative and quantitative empirical research in social sciences, including development of own cutting edge methodologies for comparative research on civil society; analysis of risk and security perception and acceptance; and public policy analysis in the process of Europeanization. The members of the team have ample experience in participation in EU framework projects such as InTune and RECON.
Role in the project
The Institute of Sociology will participate as the leader of WP 4 to the project. The IS AS CR team will concentrate on conceptualization, developing methods and empirical comparative research, and case study and comparative analysis on public perception and acceptance of risk and security issues. The team will also contribute extensive knowledge on new member states of the EU from Central and Eastern Europe.
Interest in the project
The IS AS CR team is mainly interested in developing and applying new approaches to the public perception and acceptance of risk as well as participating in testing the risk management models to the socio-political reality of the new member states of the EU from Central and Eastern Europe.
Related Projects
Some of the European projects in which the team has taken part and related with this proposal are: NEWGOV (New Modes of Governance, FP6), InTune (Integrated and United, FP6), RECON (Reconstituting Democracy in Europe, FP6).
Key Personnel
Dr. Zdenka Mansfeldová is Head of the Department of Political Sociology and Deputy Director at the Institute of Sociology at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (ISAS CR). She is doctor of philosophy from Charles University in Prague (1975) and holds a Ph.D. in empirical sociology from Moscow State University (1988). Among her most recent research project work are Modes and Efficiency of Interest Mediation between Individuals, Social Groups and the State; Political and Legal Institutional Framework of the Czech Republic and its changes in the Context of the Accession to the EU; European Political Elites in Comparison: the Long Road to Convergence, ESF Scientific Network Project; Decision Making in Eastern European Cabinets; the Impact of Foreign Direct Investment of EU-based Companies on the Labour Relations in EU Candidate Countries; as well as three projects under the Sixth Framework Programme: New Modes of Governance (NEWGOV), Integrated and United: A Quest for Citizenship in an ´ever closer Europe´ (INTUN), and RECON (Reconstituting Democracy in Europe).
Dr. Petra Rakusanova Guasti is senior researcher in the department of Political Sociology, Institute of Sociology AS CR in Prague and researcher at the University of Würzburg. She obtained PhD. at the Charles University in Prague in 2007 for her comparative work on civil society in the CEE countries in which she developed comparative methodology for the assessment of CSO as well as index of civic and political participation. Between 2005 and 2008 Petra R. Guasti was junior researcher at the Jean Monnet Centre for European Studies at University of Bremen working on the issues of European civil society, public acceptance of the EU constitutionalization process in the old and new member states. Her research concentrates on the study of the functioning of modern democracies and their institutions, political and non-political forms of interest representation and the issue of citizenship.