We spoke with Eva Roj\u00edkov\u00e1, the Manager for the Building a Community of Talent for Research, Development, and Innovation and the GoHigher projects, about education, community-building for talented youth, and working with gifted pupils three years ago. At that time, the GoHigher community did not exist yet. Today, it involves over 360 talented pupils from the region. Eva Roj\u00edkov\u00e1 collaborates with nearly twenty secondary schools and has participated in dozens of meetings, excursions, project days, and other activities for the young and gifted. They are an inspiration to one another. The secondary school pupils from the GoHigher community adore Eva \u2013 she provides them with inspiring experiences and opportunities for further education, which there is often no room for at school.<\/p>\n
Eva, we did an interview together exactly three years ago. That was right at the beginning of the GoHigher project. The community of talent only started to emerge later. Did you have any idea back then that the project would take off like this, that it would be so successful, and that it would attract so much interest? I mean especially from the gifted students themselves.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, three years ago we prepared a project based on a thorough analysis and, in particular, personal conversations with talented pupils in the Pilsen Region, which revealed the need to offer them an opportunity to meet informally and enjoy a comprehensive offer of activities prepared especially for them. If I hadn\u2019t believed in it, I would never have joined the project. But I think you\u2019re referring to the size of the community. The project was set up as a pilot, counting on the involvement of pupils of five secondary schools. This vision quickly dissolved at the very first informal GoHigher Caf\u00e9 meeting, which was attended by pupils from other schools, too, resulting in the emergence of a highly active and diverse community. Currently, more than 360 pupils from 19 secondary schools are involved in it.<\/p>\n How do parents, other collaborating organizations, and the region perceive the success of GoHigher?<\/strong><\/p>\n A survey of parents and students involved in GoHigher has not been planned, but when I had the opportunity to talk to some of them, their perception of GoHigher was very positive, and they said that their children were thrilled to have the opportunity to meet each other and gain lots of new ideas for their professional and personal development. They are much more involved in cooperation with experts, often change the direction of their further studies based on this experience, and also feel that the community has a positive impact on their mental health. Schools express similar views that the students involved are becoming more mature individuals, with clear goals, conscious communication and self-presentation skills, and the ability to plan their activities effectively, and use their time efficiently. When specialized events are held, partner organizations are often pleasantly surprised by how active the GoHigher group is, and many of them change their approach to planning new activities. How does the Pilsen Region see GoHigher? That\u2019s rather a question for the regional representatives, but in my view\u2013as we have the opportunity to talk to regional representatives\u2013the Pilsen Region is fully aware of the need to support active secondary school students interested in R&D&I in connection with the innovative development and economic growth of the region in the future.<\/p>\n The headline of the interview at the time was \u2019Opening Science to Talented Minds and Advancing the Region Among the Elite. Would you say that this is succeeding, also thanks to your work and dedication? Young people are creating the potential for highly qualified professionals in the region.<\/strong><\/p>\n It is still early days, as GoHigher has only been operating in the region for three years, but we are already seeing a significant shift in how our community is perceived by collaborating entities as a hotbed for young, active secondary school students interested in science. More and more often, I encounter efforts to identify and engage these young future scientists early, encouraging them to stay in the region and help develop it, so that together they can reach greater heights. It has been clearly proven that the driving force behind the development of society is unburdened young and energetic thinking, a desire to learn, seek new solutions, and work on research tasks with leading experts. I am convinced that the community is one of the tools for identifying active, talented secondary school pupils early on, presenting the region to them as a place where it is possible to do interesting, cutting-edge science, and involving them in scientific teams as soon as possible, thereby contributing to the region\u2019s advancement among the elite regions. It should also be noted that the Pilsen Region is the only region in the country that has such a well-established community of talent interested in R&D&I. We present our experience together with the pupils at various conferences and expert panels at the national level.<\/p>\n What surprised you most about GoHigher? <\/strong><\/p>\n The biggest surprise for me was the gratitude of the pupils involved for someone paying attention to them, respecting their needs and specifics, listening to them, treating them as partners, facilitating meetings with leading experts based on their suggestions, and allowing them to actively participate in planning the content of these meetings and programmes. Simply, someone being here for them. This also applies to me being part of the community regardless of the age difference. I was also surprised by the initiative of the participants to become ambassadors at their schools and actively inform their peers about the activities offered by GoHigher.<\/p>\n The programme included a number of interesting excursions and project days. Which one would you highlight as the most interesting, most beneficial, or the one that really engaged the participants?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to choose, as all the events we organize are aimed at activating gifted secondary school pupils with an interest in R&D&I. From a questionnaire survey among the participating pupils, I know that each event appealed to a certain part of the community. We follow the principle of offering events in cooperation with top institutions, introducing pupils to the latest developments in the region\u2019s areas of specialization, never repeating an event with the same content, emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary overlap, and each time focusing on a different field of science. The most beneficial events in terms of community building are multiple-day multidisciplinary events, where pupils from different schools and fields meet and have time to get to know each other better. To maintain and foster the community, it is important to hold regular informal meetings at the GoHigher Caf\u00e9, where they can meet and share their experience in a safe environment. The most attractive event was an excursion to Swiss science centres, specifically a visit to the world\u2019s most important science centre, CERN, including an interactive workshop. I feel I owe something to the other students in the community, because it was not possible to organize a foreign excursion also for students with a different focus.<\/p>\n From my personal encounters with talented young people, I know that they are truly grateful to be able to meet and inspire each other and to see that there are many peers who are interested in science. I suppose you feel that you are working on an important project and that it gives you energy, even though leading it is surely demanding?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, you\u2019re right, preparing and implementing activities is demanding and requires more than just an eight-hour workday. We are often involved with the community issues during our free time, but it all makes sense to me. I deeply respect them all and feel honoured to meet such young people and help them as much as we can. I am happy when I see them shining and happy, and I am also pleased that they feel good about stepping out of their comfort zone and gaining new impulses and perhaps even a new perspective on their future career path. It\u2019s wonderful to see those who are already at university coming back and helping their younger counterparts. We have also created a completely new space on the website for psychology topics, which can be found under the Mind icon.<\/p>\n Two years ago, we also talked about the fact that there are many projects and programmes for young talented individuals in the region, but they are scattered. Have you managed to bring them together? <\/strong><\/p>\n We believe we are doing very well. A database of activities has been created on the revamped portal www.gohigher.cz. We know that this is a never-ending process and there is always room for improvement. Keeping the database up to date requires a lot of energy. We have managed to set up information flows so that experts, representatives of organizations, and companies that offer events for active secondary and primary school pupils can enter events into the database themselves. At the same time, our team registers all the activities and continuously adds to them.<\/p>\n I also asked then why, according to data from the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports, we have very few talented students in our region, below the national average. Is the situation different today (thanks to GoHigher)? <\/strong><\/p>\n Definitely. I don\u2019t have the latest data, but at the very least, we helped the region set up rules for reporting gifted pupils with the 1st level of support, which help to identify gifted pupils directly at school in cooperation with the school counselling centre. In the first year after the new rules were introduced, the number of pupils reported increased. The question is whether all schools still report these pupils in this way. As far as GoHigher is concerned, we should bear in mind that the community is just getting started and this is only a pilot project. However, many schools say that participating in GoHigher has helped them to more easily identify gifted students with potential for science and research. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement. So far, we have only detected a small proportion of active pupils with an interest in natural and technical sciences. We are completely missing out on those interested in the humanities, and we must not forget that there are many talented individuals who are not involved in the community, some of whom, for various reasons, do not feel the need to meet others and will probably never join the community. However, this does not mean that they do not exist.<\/p>\n How will the talent support continue? <\/strong><\/p>\n Together with the Pilsen Region, we are working to ensure that the community of talented secondary school pupils interested in R&D&I continues to develop under the GoHigher brand and offers most of the activities that proved successful in the pilot testing. I am an optimist and believe in its successful continuation in the coming years! I don\u2019t even want to think about what would happen if the region\u2019s support ended now. It would certainly be a great disappointment for everyone involved and those potentially willing to join the community, and I think it would do more harm than we might imagine. It would certainly not add to keeping these young minds in the region, quite the opposite, and nobody wants that.<\/p>\n Do you have any area, project, or idea in mind that you\u2019d like to make happen?<\/strong><\/p>\n I have lots of ideas, but as I\u2019ve said, all activities are carried out for active pupils with active pupils, so we wait for new ideas which we collect from them on an ongoing basis, and then look for ways to bring them to life. I would definitely like to be able to offer the participants visits to scientific institutions abroad so that they can gain international experience in R&D&I. I also consider it very important to maintain and further develop the network of GoHigher pupil ambassadors and teachers who look after gifted pupils at schools, so that more and more experts from the field get involved and initiate ideas for programmes for our community themselves.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Eva Roj\u00edkov\u00e1 has been engaged in talent support and education for the 21st century since 2013, in cooperation with the University of West Bohemia. Before becoming manager of the pilot activity \u201cBuilding a Community of Talent for Research, Development, and Innovation\u201d under the GoHigher brand in the Smart Accelerator of the Pilsen Region III project (2023\u20132025), she was a member of the team conducting the survey \u201cAssessment of the Situation and Needs of Methodological Support for Comprehensive Work with Gifted Pupils Interested in Research and Development Activities in the Pilsen Region\u201d (2021). In 2022, she developed the Strategy for Supporting Talent in the Pilsen Region. Prior to that, she worked at the Institute of Physiology at the Faculty of Medicine, Charles University. For almost 18 years, she had worked as a science teacher at a secondary school, where she designed a range of educational materials for secondary school pupils and implemented school projects developing students\u2019 skills in chemistry using IT with an overlap into the environmental field. She continued to prepare education-related projects in her position as the chief project manager at the Regional Office of the Pilsen Region. At present, she is preparing educational infrastructure project plans within the Regional Agency of the Pilsen Region. Her original field of expertise is fermentation chemistry and bioengineering. In her free time, she pursues the fine arts, especially sculpture.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Photo: Jan R\u016f\u017ei\u010dka<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Interview with Eva Roj\u00edkov\u00e1, the Manager for the Building a Community of Talent for Research, Development, and Innovation and the GoHigher projects, about education, community-building for talented youth, and working with gifted pupils three years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4807,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,31,1,38],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4805"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}