Commercial presentation Update: 04/30/2024 4:59 PM
Issued by: 04/30/2024, 1:43 p.m
Prague – Economist and vice-rector of the University of Silesia in Opava Pavel Tuleja is to become the new minister for science, research and innovation. Today, the management of TOP 09 agreed on his nomination. Tuleja will replace Helena Langšádlová in the coalition government, who is leaving due to dissatisfaction of the parent party with the way she presented the results of her work in public. The President will appoint him on Monday, May 6, Deputy Prime Minister and TOP 09 party proposer Vlastimil Válek said after today’s meeting with him, and Pavlo’s spokesman Vojtěch Šeliga confirmed this to ČTK.
According to him, a meeting before the appointment is not necessary, as both of them know each other personally. The future minister wants to devote himself, for example, to young scientists or the cooperation of the National Accreditation Office with the government, and also to bring his agenda closer to the public.
The leaders of the ruling party discussed Langšádl’s successor in the House of Representatives from the morning – first the board met, then the TOP 09 executive committee. In the afternoon, the party officially confirmed that Tuleja is its candidate for Minister of Science.
Langšádlová announced her resignation on Friday. At first there was talk that she would be replaced by the deputy chairman of the party and MP from Hradec Králové Matěj Ondřej Havel, but in the end TOP 09 chose Tuleja. According to party leaders, they will focus on popularizing the results of science and its applications in practice. “My name is Pavel Tuleja and I will advocate for science to be closer to each of us,” he called out with a video from a new account on the X network about an hour after the press conference and on the network Facebook. Photo published also on Instagram.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) assumes that Tuleja will be a reinforcement of the coalition government. He knows him from the academic sphere, where Fiala worked before entering top politics. He considers the function of the Minister of Science to be important, although some opposition politicians question it. “If we want to be successful as the Czech Republic in the future, we must be successful in science, research, innovation and education. The Czech research and science support system is very complicated and decentralized, which has both advantages and risks,” said Fiala. According to him, Tuleja should, among other things, complete the law on research support. He wants to meet Tuleja in the near future.
The members of the government are appointed by the president of the republic on the proposal of the prime minister. The president of TOP 09, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, told journalists that according to the agreement with President Pavlo, Tuleja should be appointed on Monday. According to her, the candidate for minister has rich experience from the academic sphere and managerial experience. She also emphasized his economic erudition. The task for Tuleja is to complete the Langšádlová projects and present them in an understandable way.
Tuleja stated at the press conference that the minister’s vision should be to make the Czech Republic an EU leader in science and innovation. Given the mandate of the government, which will end in about a year and a half, he also wants to bring the agenda closer to the public. He plans to create a team of collaborators around him, and he will present the results himself. Already on Monday, he met with the departing Langšádlova and they agreed on cooperation.
According to Adamová, the results of the government change, which is the eighth change in the cabinet of the coalition of five since its creation at the end of 2021, will be revealed only after the elections. In them, according to surveys, the party would not be certain to enter the House of Representatives.
Fifty-three-year-old Tuleja was rector of the University of Silesia from 2015 to last February. Before that, he worked for two years as the dean of the Faculty of Business and Entrepreneurship in Karviná. Now he is also the head of the Institute of Public Administration and Social Policy at the Faculty of Public Policy in Opava. Professionally, he focuses on macroeconomic analysis, national accounting and comparative economics. He is also the chairman of the supervisory board of the mining company OKD and the chairman of the board of trustees of the registered institute UnikaCentrum. He is a member of TOP 09, since 2020 he has been a member of the council of the Moravian-Silesian Region and is also a member of the council in Havířov.
CR science government TOP 09 OPENER
