Úvod do PhD studia

General Information

In the following, you can find the detailed information about the planned retread. The text also contains some general information pertaining funding of business trips. Please read the text carefully.

Schedule

The retreat is planned to kick off on Wednesday, May 3 at 16:00. However, someone will be on-site from ca. 13:00 (possibly earlier) to handle your accommodation and registration. We will appreciate your timely arrival.

The last part of the official programme will be the Friday lunch, starting around noon. On the second and third day, the breakfast is served from 8 am to 9 am, after which the retreat programme starts. Lunch breaks are planned to start between 12:00 and 13:00. On Thursday, we plan a 2-hour "siesta" after the lunch, an opportunity to take a stroll around the town. Other than that, the schedule is filled with the retreat programme.

Funding

The funding of your participation depends on whether, at the time of the retreat, you will have some sort of contract with the university (either a work contract, "pracovní smlouva," or a work agreement, "dohoda o provedení práce/pracovní činnosti") or not. This includes contracts for teaching assistance.

If you have a contract, you will need to submit a travel form via INET. Based on this, you will receive a reimbursement for your transportation costs (with a caveat for car travel, see below) and your accommodation will be pre-paid by the faculty. You will also receive the law-mandated per diems to cover your meal costs. Since the per diems for domestic travel are not very high, we will try to arrange an extra stipend to cover the rest.

It is ideal to submit the form a couple of weeks before the retreat. You'll get an e-mail notification from us.

If you do not have a contract, you do not need to fill in anything. Instead you will get a special stipend to cover your costs. However, you will obtain such a stipend only after the retreat, so during the retreat you will need to pay for the accommodation/meals/transportation out of your pocket.

IMPORTANT: When eating out (Thursday evening), you are expected to pay your consumption out of your pocket and get reimbursed later. Please do not leave the restaurant without paying. ;-)


Registration Form



Deadline for submitting the form: March 15, 2023.


Venue

The retreat takes place at the University Centre Telč: https://mapy.cz/s/kupokojuke.


Accommodation

We arranged accommodation in comfortable double rooms at the University Centre Telč. For those with a contract, the accommodation will be pre-paid. Otherwise, you will need to pay CZK 800 (for the whole stay) out of your pocket and will be reimbursed via a stipend.


Meals

Breakfasts, lunches, and Wednesday dinner will be provided at UC Telč. You will have to pay these out of your pocket in advance (you will receive payment instructions via e-mail) and will be reimbursed after the event.

For Thursday evening, we will arrange a private lounge at the "Panský dvůr Telč" restaurant.

Menus to select from will be sent to you in a due time.

Travel

Travel by car

There are some important administrative rules to consider, provided that you fall into the "have a contract with the university" category:

The usage of a car on an official business trip is only permitted if you satisfy all the following requirements:

  • You are an employee with a regular work contract ("pracovní smlouva"). A work agreement ("dohoda o provedení práce, pracovní činnosti") is NOT sufficient.
  • Your car is registered with the faculty accounting department (they will provide an info about how to do that).
  • You have completed the "OHS training for drivers" ("školení řidičů") available in IS.

If you do not meet these requirements, do not use a car while officially on a business trip. You might get us and yourself into an insurance trouble. However: when filling in the travel form ("cestovní příkaz"), you can give the address of UC Telč as the start- and end-point of your business trip. Then, your travel to and from Telč will not constitute a business trip and in principle you can then travel in any way you like. In such a case, your fuel costs will not be reimbursed.

If you do not have any contract with the university and hence do not fill in a travel form, your participation does not constitute a business trip and you can travel as you like.

If you go by a car and would like to offer a shared ride to your colleagues (or find someone to give you a ride), you can use the discussion forum in IS.

Please note that visitor cars are prohibited from Telč main square. Parking info:

(A glance at street view shows that there are also spots for curbside parking throughout the town, though be vigilant for signs with possible parking restrictions.)


Travel by public transport

Timetables for public transport can be searched here: 

If you choose to go by bus, an advance booking might be a good idea. A train trip via Havlíčkův Brod (you need to add a "via" location into the query) is a slower but slightly more comfortable alternative.


Checklist: What to Bring (and What to Leave at Home :-) )

The only thing necessary to bring is some paper notebook and writing instruments.

We do not have any organized "coffee breaks," but we will have a kitchenette at our disposal; you can bring your favourite tea or coffee to prepare some refreshment yourselves (mugs will be provided).

Thursday evening is yours: we hope that you'll help us to fill the evening with a program that you will enjoy. So please bring anything that might help you to achieve that: perhaps a musical instrument, perhaps a board game, or perhaps nothing, if you'd just like to have a meal and chat.

We'd like to gently discourage you from bringing your laptops, if only because there will be hardly any time to use them. Throughout the whole retreat, there will be at most 2-3 hours of some frontal, lecture-like teaching, the rest are activities that require your active and focused participation (small working groups, discussions, exercises, etc.).

Some additional useful stuff:

  • a blanket or something similar: if the weather is nice, we might decide to move some sessions to the Telč chateau park 


Homework

We have a very lightweight homework for you, to be done before the retreat. More details in due time via e-mail.