This issue features an article on the life and work of the first post-1989 President of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (CAS), Professor Otto Wichterle. The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic has been observing this year the 100th anniversary of his birth. A recollection meeting to organize this jubilee took place on October 24, 2013 at the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry. The Institute of Chemical Technology the same day exhibited a bust of Professor Wichterle by sculptor Milan Vácha at a festive ceremony. A chemist and inventor Otto Wichterle achieved world renown not only for his invention the first practicable soft contact lens. He supervised the former Academy of Sciences from 1990 until Czechoslovakia was dissolved in 1992. In 2007, Professor Wichterte was posthumously named to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. and Luděk Svoboda a Gabriela Adámková.
This issue presents complete preliminaries on voting for a new president of Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The new president will assume his office on March 25, 2013 and serve for four years. As head of the ASCR, he is its chief representative and also administrator of the Academy's budget. After his selection, he will be nominated to the post by the president of the Czech Republic. The candidate will be selected at the XLI Meeting of Academic Assembly. The list of proposed nominees for the members of Academic Board and Scientific Board of ASCR will be published in the second issue of Academic bulletin 2013.
Russian scientists and their foreign colleagues vigorously disapproved a new law that would radically transform the 300 year-old Russian Academy of Sciences. Two more specialized bodies — the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences — would be merged with the larger Academy. Its real estate holdings and property would be managed by a newly established agency. A protest by Russian scientists has delayed a third reading in the Russian Parliament until September. and Vladimír Majer.