The American astronaut, Andrew Feustel, who took "Krtek" (the Little Mole), the cartoon character created by the Czech animator Zdeněk Miler, into space with him aboard the Endeavour space shuttle last May, completed a visit to the Czech Republic during which he promoted science and technology among young Czechs. The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, which invited Feustel to Prague, awarded him the Honorary Medal "De Scientia Et Humanitate Optime Meritis" for propagating science and research. He is the third American astronatu, after John Blaha and Eugene Cernan, to have a Czech connection, his wife Indira's mother, having been born in Znojmo. This was the second time Feustel took something "Czech" with him into space. On his first mission in May 2009, he brought along a book of poems entitled Cosmic Songs by the Czech writer Jan Neruda. and Luděk Svoboda.
The National Technical Library in cooperation with the Czech Technical University and Instutute of Chemical Technology in Prague cosponsored the international conference Knowledge, Research and Education on September 8-9, 2011. Research metrics was the topic of this meeting. Organizers sought to draw attention to the often controversial mechanisms for evaluating the results of research and their subsequent impact on its continued financing and institutional support. The conference brought together university dignitaries, senior members of the faculties, library staff and representatives of the publishing industry for the purpose of facilitating discussion of research trends and policies that inform their respective fields of interest shared by all. One of the key lectures was given by the co-Director of CERGE-EI Štěpán Jurajda. He reviewed currend evidence of the productivity of Czech science (by field) based on bibliometric data, pointed to typical mistakes made in recent evaluation exercises and analyses, illustrated these by using examples typically drawn from social sciences, and offered a few tentative bibliometric facts. and Luděk Svoboda.