Leitartikel

Over the past twenty years, changes in ownership structure have brought major changes to chemistry in Slovakia, as I learned during several years in top managerial positions in the Slovak Chemical Society (SCHS). SCHS (<ext-link ext-link-type="uri"><a href="https://www.schems.sk" target="_blank">www.schems.sk</a></ext-link>), a former partner within the federally organised Czech chemical society, is affiliated with the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS). 
From 1989 on, both Slovak and foreign individuals and groups started privatising key national enterprises in an effort to either maintain and develop existing business activities or snuff them out through restructuring in order to procure real estate or eliminate competition. This also occurred in Slovakia's well developed chemical and pharmaceutical industrial sector, from heavy chemical industry, such as Slovnaft in Bratislava and Duslo in Sala, to fine chemistry such as Slovakofarma in Hlohovec.
When chemists first organised eighty years ago, SCHS emerged as a leading organisation, recruiting its members mainly from academia. It was followed by the Slovak Society of Industrial Chemistry (SSPCH). SCHS activities include organising the Annual Congress of Chemists (taking turns with the Czech Chemical Society), the lecture series Chemical Horizons, the Novartis international lectures, and lectures by Heyrovsky-Ilkovic-Nernst in cooperation with SCHS and GDCh.
In former times, the government substantially subsidised the state-supported organisations of the National Front, which could then augment their financing through membership fees and donations from industrial sponsors with funds allocated just for this purpose. When in 1970 the Czechoslovak Chemical Society, of which the SCHS was an integral part, became a founding member of FECS (the predecessor of Euchems), membership dues presented no problem, since FECS was founded in Prague.
After 1989, the importance of these organisations diminished, and people lost interest in joining and working for them. With reduced membership, income from dues of course declined, but other sources of funding dried up as well, so that now these organisations have been left to their own devices and have to scramble to keep afloat. With industry relocating abroad and the restructuring of domestic industrial research, funds once supplied by contract research for industry have become rare indeed.
Until now, SAS has helped SCHS pay its Euchems membership fee. This means we pay our dues retroactively, which does not make us popular, but at least it leaves us more money for other activities. But even this support is precarious. Our membership is now at only 400, with proportionately reduced financial resources. Despite all this, we go on publishing our biannual bulletin, and we continue to support young chemists at the Chemical Olympiad, where they are regular medallists, as well as chemists working in SAS, at universities (at least nine have a chemistry department) and in private companies. Of these only five have over 1000 employees, though according to the Slovak Statistical Bureau some 1670 companies are active in chemistry.
Since 1940, the faculty of chemical and food technology of the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava has graduated 18,000 students at masters level, and the one faculty of natural sciences in Bratislava (CU) and the two faculties in Kosice (UPJS and TU) have granted 3,000 2nd level diplomas in chemistry, bringing to 21,000 the total of Slovak chemists graduated over the past 70 years. Thus the significant brain drain since 1990, primarily for economic reasons, becomes clear — the result of increased cooperation, study abroad, and post-doctoral appointments.
Despite these nagging funding problems, SCHS chemists try earnestly to represent Slovakian chemistry and to contribute to its development as a creative force shaping the future of national, European and global societies — a challenge for even the boldest.
Slovakian Chemists Shaping the Future

Artikel

A Challenge for Even the Boldest

Over the past twenty years, changes in ownership structure have brought major changes to chemistry in Slovakia, as I learned during several years in top managerial positions in the Slovak Chemical Society (SCHS). SCHS (www.schems.sk), a former partner within the federally organised Czech chemical...

Inhalt

<h2>1097 Leitartikel</h2>
A Challenge for Even the Boldest
V. Milata


<h2>Magazin</h2>


<h2>1105 Nobelpreise 2010</h2>
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<h2>1107 Nobelpreise 2010</h2>
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<h2>1109 Vulkanologie</h2>
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<h2>1115 Nanochemie</h2>
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<h2>1121 Nobelpreis</h2>
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C. Remenyi
Nobelpreisträgerin Ada Yonath im Interview.


<h2>1124 Chemiegeschichte </h2>
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<h2>Blickpunkt</h2>


<h2>1131 Synthese</h2>
Elegant und nützlich:
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<h2>1136 Chemie und Computer</h2>
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<h2>1139 Chemiewirtschaft</h2>
Life Science in Austria
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<h2>1141 Thomas Seuß: Prüfungsantrag stellen oder nicht?</h2>
1142 Chemiewirtschaft
Reife macht erfolgreich
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<h2>1144 Analytik</h2>
Was riecht, wenn's gebrannt hat?
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<h2>1148 Analytik</h2>
Jede Metallspezies ist anders
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<h2>1151 Analytik</h2>
Polar modifizierte HPLC-Umkehrphasen 
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<h2>1155 Analytik</h2>
Ein Spektrometer für die spektral aufgelöste Niederfeld-NMR
M. Cudaj, G. Guthausen, A. Kamlowski, D. Maier, T. Hofe, M. Wilhelm


<h2>1158 Fürs Laboratorium</h2>


<h2>Notizen</h2>
1100 C hemie 1103 Wirtschaft
1104 Forschung und Bildung


<h2>Journal</h2>
1160 Impressum, Interskriptum
1161 Personalnachrichten
1164 Korrespondenz
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1172 Tagungskalender und -berichte
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1180 Frontiers of Chemistry 1183 Satellitensteuerung und Jugendstil
1184 Transatlantische Brücke
1185 NSYCC-JCF-Austausch
1189 IYC 2011
1196 Die GDCh vor Ort
nach 1198 Euchems-Newsletter
1199 Chemietage, Asac News
1200 Zweigstellen
1201 In Memoriam Hanns Malissa
1202 Geburtstage, Welsbach Lecture
1203 WFC 1204 Neumitglieder
1205 Stellenmarkt


<h2>Karriere</h2>
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A Challenge for Even the Boldest

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