The U.S. Department of State and the Council for International Exchange of Scholars has named Petr Matějů a Fulbright New Century Scholar for 2007-2008

This year’s theme is "Higher Education in the 21st Century: Access and Equity."

Prof. Matějů holds a position of the Director of the Department for Analysis and Strategy of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, where he is responsible mainly for designing the reform of the Czech tertiary education system, and also of the chair of the Department for Education and Social Stratification at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. In May 2007 he was appointed a member of the Council for Research and Development, advisory body of the Czech Government.

His main research interests have been in social inequality, social and distributive justice, educational and occupational mobility, social transformation in Eastern and Central Europe, and comparative research in education, competitiveness and innovation. The most recent books he edited or co-edited are Ten Years of Rebuilding Capitalism. Czech Society after 1989 (both in Czech and English, published in 1998), Inequality - Justice - Politics (published in Czech in 2000), Czech Higher Education at Crossroads (published in Czech in 2005), and Unequal Chances for an Education (published in Czech in 2006). He also published a number of articles both in Czech and international academic and professional journals. He frequently publishes in daily newspapers and weekly magazines. For his publications he ranks among the most cited Czech sociologists.

Founded in 2001, the Fulbright New Century Scholars program provides a platform for top thinkers to develop new multidisciplinary responses to the many challenges of the 21st century, both on a global and local scale. Of the approximately thirty scholars selected annually, ten come from the United States and two-thirds from any of the 140 countries worldwide with an active Fulbright Scholars program.

For more information about the Fulbright New Century Scholar program or for a complete list of this year’s class, please visit www.cies.org/NCS.