History of the Department

Department of Statistics was found on 1st August 1952 as a part of then Faculty of Economics of the University of the Political and Economic Sciences. When from the faculty University of Economics was found on 1st August 1953, the Faculty of Statistics was part of it with the department of same name and study program Statistics  on a daily basis as well as distance study. In the year 1958 the department was assigned to the Faculty of Political Economy (called Faculty of Economics since 1968). During the years the Department of Computational and Organizational Equipment (the forerunner of today´s IT departments) and the Department of Scientific Programming (today´s Department of Econometrics) were separated. During the november reorganization of VŠE (1990) the Department was divided into Department of Statistics and Probability (with most of the pedagogues from the Department of Statistics) and smaller Department of Economic Statistics and Department of Demograpgy. All of them became part of newly created Faculty of Informatics and Statistics.

Members of the Department are authors of dozens of books, textbooks and scientific proceedings as well as a large number of articles in domestic and international scientific journals. Many pedagogues came to high academic positins: professors Cyhelský and Kaňoková as vice-rektors; after year 1989 docent Žváček became vice-rektor (1991) and after his injury it was professor Seger. Professor Seger was twice (1993 and 1996) elected as a rector of the University and once as a dean of the Faculty (2006 – 2010). Professor Hindls is in his second term as a rector of the University (2006 and 2010), who was twice elected as a dean of the Faculty (2001 and 2004). Nowadays the dean of the Faculty is docent Marek (since 2010). Professor Likeš was elected as a first head of the Academic Senate of the University (1990) and then twice as a Faculty´s dean (1991 and 1994). Docent Blatná was head of the Faculty´s Academic Senate for several terms (1998 through 2009). In modern history professor Jílek and docent Souček worked in high positions in the Czech Statistical Office (vicepresident in 1990 – 1992 and president in 1990 – 1993 respectively).

Let us here shortly remember some of the dead members of the Department: significant economic statistician docent Josef Kašpar (1929 – 1968), promising pedagogue docent Jiří Kejkula (1943 – 1982), author of many books about probability theory docent Jaroslav Hátla (1928 – 1987), renowned mathematical statistician professor Jiří Likeš (1929 – 1994), founder of the demographic field at VŠE professor Vladimír Roubíček (1930 – 2005) and his successor in position of the head of Department of Demography docent Felix Koschin (1946 – 2009) and significant researcher in the field of statistical forecasting professor Josef Kozák (1931 – 2005).

Heads of the Department – in years:

František Herbst (1952-1953)
Eduard Link (1953-1955)
Benedikt Korda (1955-1959)
Jaromír Walter (1959-1961)
Josef Kašpar (1961-1962)
Lubomír Cyhelský (1962-1990)
Petr Hebák (1990-1992)
Richard Hindls (1992-now)
(in the years 2001-2006, when professor Hindls was dean and since the year 2006 rector, he was deputized in the charge of the department by professor Jan Seger. In the years 2006 – 2010 docent Luboš Marek was entrusted to charge the department)