Research in the Czech Republic is subsidized and monitored primarily by the Czech Science Foundation and the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TACR). We especially recommend following TACR on social networks. They are great popularizers of science, although Daniel Stach of Czech Television’s Hydepark is unrivalled in the Czech environment and also carries out some of his discussions with foreign experts in English.
Recently, there have been efforts towards so-called “open science” and open approaches to it. This means that we’re trying to shift to a system in which the results of research that are meant to improve the world don’t stay locked away in scientific journals. This is how things have worked until now – scientific articles cost money and are expensive, only accessible to the elite, and completely unreachable for a person outside a research workplace. Frankly speaking, it’s not a very easy process, and the fight for it has even cost some their lives (e.g. Aaron Swartz) or put them in danger of imprisonment (e.g. Alexandra Elbakyan).
Now within the European Union, all scientific output paid for by EU money should be open. More and more journals are shifting to Open Access, which basically means that you can find a scientific article on the internet just like anything else by Googling it or in an open database.
Source: Youtube channel Hornswoggle.
Research is far from being a matter only for scholars, academicians, wispy-bearded professors and men in white lab coats… Thanks to available information, we can be smart enough to think out and plan our own (small-scale) research, and with online questionnaires (for example), we can collect information from respondents, and so forth. Almost anyone can create a small research project to improve their environment (in school, work, etc.) or simply to find something out. This means that if you plan to be a web designer, you’ll be able to find out the needs of your users. If you’re going to be the director of a school, you’ll know how to ascertain the opinions of the parents. If you’re going to be a librarian, you’ll know how to create better services for your readers.
For the same reason, you can start researching now in school, which forms a large part of your present world. What can you explore? How do your classmates view the methods of evaluation in your school? How do they perceive the use of technologies during classes? How would they like to get involved in the school’s operation. How do they perceive the role of school in society? What are secondary school students’ voting preferences like? And many other questions, which can serve as important information or a stimulus for change.