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Scientific output is expanding at an unprecedented pace, yet some studies suggest that genuinely disruptive ideas may be becoming less common. What does this apparent paradox mean for societies that look to science for new medicines, technologies, and solutions to climate change and other major challenges? And are today’s systems of research funding and evaluation equipped to support bold, unconventional, and potentially transformative ideas? These questions will be at the centre of the international symposium Novelty and Inequalities in Science, taking place in Prague on 8–9 October. The event is organised by the Centre for Science, Technology, and Society at the Institute of Philosophy...

German researcher Lukas Kob has been a research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences since last year, supported by a prestigious fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. In a commentary for the VědaVýzkum.cz portal, he explains why leading experts in the field from New York and Germany recommended the Czech capital to him for his postdoctoral research, and why he himself sees Prague as an important center for the philosophy of consciousness and artificial intelligence.

The extensive written estate of the prominent Czech philosopher and mathematician Bernard Bolzano, much of which has yet to be thoroughly explored, followed a remarkably complex path after his death in 1848. While one part eventually found its way into the collections of the National Museum and the Literary Archive of the Museum of Czech Literature in Prague, a collection consisting mainly of mathematical manuscripts was donated to the Imperial Court Library in Vienna, now the Austrian National Library. The two collections will now gradually be brought together and made accessible through the Bolzano Digital Archive. A breakthrough in the more than century-long history of unsuccessful...