The Universe Endowment Fund — in Czech, Nadační fond Vesmír — was established in Prague in 1999 to support scientific culture with the same steady care that its founder brought to his own scholarship.
We are a small, deliberate endowment fund working in a single, well-defined area: the everyday support of Czech science and education. That includes the continued publication of the Vesmír journal, one-time assistance for students who need essential study literature, contributions to socially disadvantaged students, and support for lecture activity that keeps ideas moving between the university and the wider public.
Our work does not seek scale. It seeks fit. A carefully chosen textbook, a lecture given in a full room, an issue of a journal that arrives in the post — these are the objects of our attention.
“The purpose of the endowment fund is to support the development of science and education.” — from the statutes, 1999
The fund was established by Prof. RNDr. Zdeněk Neubauer (30 May 1942 – 5 July 2016), a Czech biologist and philosopher whose thinking bridged the natural sciences and the humanities. Neubauer taught for decades at the Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague, and his conversations — with students, colleagues, and the readers of Vesmír — were a formative influence on a generation of Czech intellectual life. The endowment carries forward the practice he believed in most: careful, unhurried attention to real questions.
The Universe Endowment Fund is a registered Czech nadační fond — an endowment fund — established under Czech law and entered in the public foundation registry maintained by the Municipal Court in Prague, file N 260, on 4 June 1999. As an endowment fund, we are a nonprofit legal entity whose purpose and governance are fixed in our founding statutes.
The fund is governed by a Board of Directors (Správní rada) that carries statutory responsibility for its activities, supervised by a Supervisory Board (Dozorčí rada). Grant decisions are made collectively, in writing, and against the criteria set in the fund’s statutes. On behalf of the fund, the Chair of the Board of Directors acts and signs.
The statutory body of the endowment fund. Members serve in a volunteer capacity.
A long-standing figure in Czech civic and public life. Contributes governance and organisational experience to the fund’s work.
Brings decades of experience in publishing and cultural work to the oversight of the fund’s support for Vesmír and its lecture programmes.
Professor of medicine, formerly Dean of the Third Faculty of Medicine at Charles University. Represents the fund’s ties to the Czech academic community.
Oversees financial and procedural compliance of the fund’s activities under the Czech Civil Code and the fund’s statutes.
A natural scientist whose contribution reflects the fund’s original commitment to research and to the cultivation of scientific literacy.
Vesmír, the Czech popular-science journal that the fund would later support, begins publication. It remains in continuous print to this day.
Prof. Zdeněk Neubauer establishes the Universe Endowment Fund in Prague, entered in the public registry on 4 June 1999.
The fund grows into a quiet, steady contributor to the Vesmír journal, to student support, and to lecture activity across Prague and beyond.
Zdeněk Neubauer passes away in July 2016. The fund continues its work under the guidance of its Board.
The endowment remains modest in scale and precise in purpose — sustaining the same four programmes set in 1999.
From the Vesmír journal to student support, our work is small in scale and specific in purpose.