About

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.

Verunka - web quality
2004 MSc. in biology

Charles University in Prague, CZ

2009 PhD in plant molecular biology and genetics

John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK

2007 - 2009 postdoc

University College London, UK

2009 - 2011 postdoc

CICbioGUNE, Spain

2011 - 2013 postdoc

Fundación Caubet-CIMERA, Spain

2013 - now research project manager

CEITEC, Masaryk University, CZ

2021 research project consultant

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.

1998 MSc. in general agriculture

Mendel University in Brno, CZ

2009 PhD in special plant production

Mendel University, Brno, CZ

2003 - 2005 postdoc

Ludwig–Maximilians–Universität München, Germany

2006 - 2007 regulatory biologist

Syngenta Czech, Prague, CZ

2011 - 2014 research project manager

CEITEC, Masaryk University, CZ

2015 - now grants manager

Vienna Biocenter Core Facilities GmbH, Austria

Matthew Smith

Proofreader and English language editor

Matt

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.

About

CONTACT

Veronika Mikitova, PhD.

Hvozdec 122
Hvozdec 664 71
Czech Republic

info@sciotheca.eu

+420 731 527 503

Company registration number (IN): 09709631

Please don’t hesitate in contacting us with any question you may have. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

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