Editor's note

Academia may look like a sweet gig from the outside, but these days the bad working conditions of young scholars are spurring labour rights campaigns in the United States, United Kingdom and beyond.

Not so in the Czech Republic, say Jaroslav Fiala and Sára Vidímová, where the dismal lifestyle of academics is not a topic of conversation – and this despite the fact that impoverished academics, many of whom work multiple jobs to make ends meet, are fleeing the field. Can this young, post-communist country thrive if it doesn’t nourish the next generation of thinkers?

Catesby Holmes

Global Commissioning Editor

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“Hanging Man” by David Cerny - Uncertainty about intellectualism in the 20th century. James Cridland/flickr

'This life isn't worth a damn': the precarious existence of Czech intellectuals

Jaroslav Fiala, Charles University

In some places, the dismal labour conditions of young academics have spurred them to unionise. Not so in the Czech Republic, where students and intellectuals lead lives of “state-ordered poverty”.

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