The research programme was launched in July 2020 under the leadership of the T. G. Masaryk Water Research Institute. Its primary task is to find answers to many questions related to water and water management.
This research programme, entitled "Water Centre", was launched at the first meeting of the Steering Group. The start of the activities of the Water Centre was influenced by the current Covid pandemic, which significantly affected many aspects of the Centre's activities from the outset. The impact included business trip restrictions, cancellation of conferences, workshops, limited possibility of communication between workplaces and between people at workplaces, in particular due to "working from home". The situation was also reflected in the late signing of a contract with the provider of support for project activities, the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, which did not happen until 20 October 2020.
Events planned in advance had to be postponed or could not take place at all. One example is the joint introductory meeting of all researchers. We managed to gradually adapt to this situation and handle regular communication and negotiations by using remote access. More frequent use of online participation is likely to remain after the crisis, reducing unnecessary travel, for example. Although the current situation had limited impact on the main research activities, all work packages were launched in August and September 2020.
The current state of the Water Centre's activities in 2020 was then summarized in the Evaluation Report for Support Providers. It stated that despite the above problems, in the first six months of the Water Centre's activities, i.e. in the period from July to December 2020, the foundations of the Centre´s activities were formally laid, the organization of the Centre's activities was started with the meetings of the Steering Group and the activities of the coordination team, and in particular the research activities were started and progressed accordingly.