OUR TEAM
Veronika Mikitova, PhD.
Founder of SCIOTHECA, research project manager and science enthusiast with a research backround
After Master´s degree studies in biology at Charles University in Prague Veronika completed PhD in plant molecular biology and genetics at John Innes Centre in Norwich (UK). As a postdoctoral fellow she had opportunity to be member of three different research groups, at the University College London (UK), CICBioGune institute (Spain) and in Fundación Caubet-CIMERA (Spain). After ten years of work in research, she decided to completely reverse the direction of her scientific career and focus on managing research and innovation projects. Since she swapped her lab bench for an office desk in 2013, Veronika has worked as research project manager at the recently established CEITEC research institute at Masaryk University (Czechia).
As grant officer, Veronika assists in preparing R&D projects to young and less experienced students, early career postdocs as well as senior scientists. She advises researchers on how to select the most appropriate grant scheme from the available funding landscape, how to develop the proposal from formulating the initial idea to successful submission of the competitive grant proposal. During last six years she has gained valuable experience with preparing, negotiating and implementing various types of funding schemes supported by many different national and international funders.
During her maternity leave Veronika continues providing support for candidates for ERC grants. From here it was just a step to setting up her own business offering consulting services also to researchers outside her home university.
Charles University in Prague, CZ
John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK
University College London, UK
CICbioGUNE, Spain
Fundación Caubet-CIMERA, Spain
CEITEC, Masaryk University, CZ
foundation of SCIOTHECA
Lada Fialova, PhD.
Research project manager
From education and training, Lada has a master’s degree in General Agriculture (Czechia), followed by a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding (Czechia and Germany) and several years of research in plant molecular biology (Germany). For the last nine years, she has been working as grant manager. The path leading to this position started after she decided to quit her scientific career and go to industry. Lada spent two years as Product Development Manager at Syngenta, a global company developing and producing plant protection products. There she collected her first managerial experiences, which proved to be essential for her next career development.
After maternity leave, Lada started a new job as grant manager, a position combining both research and project management. First, she supported international scientists at CEITEC (Central European Institute of Technology in Brno, Czechia) with focus on basic research, followed by Vienna Biocenter Core Facilities (Austria), whose focus is applied research with the use of research infrastructures.
Lada has an advisory role in the whole process of a grant preparation including proposal review, budget creation, and communication with funding agencies. Her further expertise is in the post-award grant management, i.e. activity- and financial reporting, project coordination, organizing project, negotiations with funding agencies. We are happy that Lada has accepted our offer to cooperate in Sciotheca as grant consultant and can share her long-term experiences in reviewing grant proposals and making them highly competitive.
Mendel University in Brno, CZ
Mendel University, Brno, CZ
Ludwig–Maximilians–Universität München, Germany
Syngenta Czech, Prague, CZ
CEITEC, Masaryk University, CZ
Vienna Biocenter Core Facilities GmbH, Austria
Matthew Smith
Proofreader and English language editor
Matthew originally studied Mechanical Engineering and after working in the industry for almost 10 years he started teaching English in 2004 in Brno (Czechia). He is now a DELTA qualified teacher and teacher trainer and has been teaching English as a foreign language ever since. He first started proofreading and editing work in 2012. Since then he runs with his wife successfull company Brno Editing, Proofreading & Translation Services.