The Kellner Family Foundation

The Kellner Family Foundation is a family foundation in the Czech Republic established by Petr and Renáta Kellner in 2009.

History

The Foundation was established in 2009 and provided 9 million CZK to aid several municipalities after the floods of 2010.^[1] In 2011, the Foundation reported that it had been merged with the Educa foundation in 2011.^[2] According to the media, the Foundation has donated in total CZK 91 million during the year 2013. In 2014, the Foundation exceeded that amount by granting over CZK 97 million.^[3]

Description

The Kellner Family Foundation focuses on improving the quality of education at public primary school in the Czech Republic, namely through its Helping Schools Succeed project.^[4] It also supports financially disadvantaged students of the Open Gate grammar school which is located in Babice, a town near Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic. The Foundation’s “Universities” project also provides grants to Czech students to study at universities in the Czech Republic and abroad.^[5] The Foundation has also made generous donations to individuals and institutions working on projects focused on health, educational and cultural activities.

The Foundation channels its efforts into four major projects:^[6]

• The “Open Gate” project supports academically-gifted children from foster homes, broken families or otherwise challenging socio-economic environments by providing them with education and accommodation at the 8-year grammar school of the same name. Since the school’s establishment in 2005, about two-thirds of its students have received full or partial grants from the Foundation. The Foundation grants around CZK 50 million annually.^[7]
• Similar to Open Gate is the “Universities” project that grants money for school fees, travel costs and living expenses to talented students so that they can study at universities abroad and in the Czech Republic. Thanks to these grants, around 50 students leave the country to study abroad, or get support to enroll at Czech universities and other higher education institutions annually.^[8] In the academic year 2012/2013 the group of 50 students has been granted funds.^[9] In the academic year 2014/2015 the grants have been provided to the group of 57 students.^[10]
• Helping Schools Succeed is a project that provides selected elementary schools with funds to improve the qualifications of their teachers and principals. ^[11] The Foundation currently works with more than 400 teachers and, through them, supports more than 6,000 students.
• The Science project supports the work of Czech oncology researchers. Multi-year grants are allocated to exceptional scientists with successful international backgrounds and also to talented researchers who have just started their careers, including fresh graduates from medical or natural science faculties. In 2013, the first three research groups received grants for 4–5 years whose overall sum totalled CZK 8.5m. Within the next five years, the Foundation is projected to provide around CZK 38m in grants and financial support. To date, grants have been given to three teams of researchers. One team, led by Jan Brábek from Charles University’s Faculty of Science in on the Analysis of the Plasticity of Cancer Cell Invasiveness. The other two teams are led by Jaroslav Truksa from the Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, and Jiří Bartek, who heads a laboratory at the Danish Cancer Society Research Center in Copenhagen, Denmark.^[12]

References