Prof. Robert Čep is a mechanical engineer not only through education but also by heart. He has been in the management of the Faculty since 2012, fi rst as the Vice Dean, and since March 2020, as the Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at VSB-TU Ostrava. He focuses on cooperation with industry, faculty modernisation and marketing in relation to employers and students.
What is the state of your Faculty, and how can your graduates find employment in the labour market?
The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering belongs to the traditional faculties of our University. For more than 70 years of its existence, it has earned an outstanding reputation in the Czech Republic and abroad. The excellent reputation of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering is evidenced, for example, by the results of the “School Recommended by Employers” competition, in which 500 Czech companies evaluate the level of university graduates. Industrial companies are highly interested in our students. Thanks to this, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of VSB-TUO has been at the top of this ranking for many years.
The Faculty has managed to stabilise the number of students and staff . It has also managed to gradually increase the budget for the functioning of the Faculty, not only thanks to the contribution of the Ministry of Education, but also thanks to the successful acquisition of projects from the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, grants provided by ministries, European projects, and others. The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering stands firmly on three pillars — teaching, research and development, and cooperation with practice. These areas are interconnected, and one could not exist without the other.
We could not educate quality students if we did not address the problems of industrial practice and involve students in them. Similarly, we could not address these challenges if not for educators, students and their fresh ideas and innovations. Cooperation with companies is framed by the Faculty’s Industrial Board, which helps to guide the content of degree programmes and individual courses. The fruitful cooperation has resulted in, for example, a specialised Bachelor’s degree as well as a Master’s degree programme in Industrial Engineering. Experts from companies also participate in teaching some subjects as permanent lecturers or invited lecturers.
In robotics, you cooperate with the multinational company ABB Czech Republic. What are the practical results of that cooperation?
The ABB company cooperates with the Faculty on the long-term intersectoral cooperation project “Research Platform Focused on Industry 4.0 and Robotics in Ostrava Agglomeration”. For the sixth year in a row, 5th-year students have the opportunity to gain practical experience on a week-long internship in the Ostrava branch of ABB for servicing motors and generators as well as repairing robots. Students will pass a test and receive a certificate based on this internship. ABB also helps us maintain industrial robots in the Robotics Centre of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of VSB-TUO and provides free company software for teaching design and programming. We are currently in talks to expand our cooperation portfolio in other areas, such as 3D printing and popularisation of engineering fields of study at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.
Are many people interested in studying at your Faculty, and how do you address secondary school students?
We cooperate with a number of secondary, primary and kindergarten schools. We organise popularisation events, excursions, and lectures for their pupils and attract them to study technical fields in Ostrava. We have also invested in advertising campaigns, which have had great success and reach not only potential students but also their parents. These campaigns have helped us maintain a relatively steady flow of applicants during the most significant drops in applications. More recently, we have seen a substantial increase, culminating in 2020, when 38% more students enrolled than the previous year. I am confident that they will all complete their studies and become the graduates we can be proud of. Graduates who are well prepared for the job market in large and small companies.
Thank you for the interview.
