World-class science for Czech money. Evaluation shows extraordinary performance of domestic health research
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Czech health research achieves above-average results in international comparison, even though the state invests significantly less in it than most developed European countries. This is shown by the ongoing evaluation of the Program for the Support of Applied Health Research for the Years 2024–2030, which was prepared for the Agency for Health Research of the Czech Republic by the Technology Center Prague. The results of the analysis also show that the current model of "top science for little money" may not be sustainable in the long term.
In the field of health research, the Czech Republic is one of the countries that can extract exceptionally high-quality results from limited resources. The interim evaluation of the Ministry of Health's Program for the Support of Applied Health Research for the Years 2024–2030 (NW) shows that Czech scientists achieve significantly above-average international visibility in clinical medicine. The field-normalized citation rate of Czech publications in clinical medicine, which represents the strongest field in terms of publications, reached 2.42 in 2024, i.e. more than twice the world average. In other fields of health research, the field-normalized citation rate also reaches above-average values worldwide. In other words: Czech health research is exceptionally respected and cited internationally.
This result is all the more remarkable because the funding of health research in the Czech Republic remains low compared to developed European countries . While the Czech Republic invests approximately 17.6 euros per capita in health research, in Finland it is almost four times this amount and in Austria even five times this amount. Moreover, the difference has been widening in recent years. The evaluation shows that between 2019 and 2024, public investment in health research in the Czech Republic increased only slightly, while many European countries increased their budgets significantly faster.
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