Science Café: Every Drop Counts
04. 11. 2026, 18:30 – 22:00
Prague House - Av. Palmerston 16, 1000 Bruxelles
Speakers
Vera Potopová
Czech University of Life Sciences Prague
Vera Potopová is an agroclimatologist and Full Professor at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources, with 30 years of research experience in drought, climate risks, and agricultural vulnerability across Central and Eastern Europe. Her work focuses on flash and persistent drought, compound drought–heat stress, and their impacts on agriculture. She combines field research, long-term meteorological records, Earth observation, and climate–crop–water modelling to support drought monitoring, farm-level adaptation, and evidence-based decision-making. Through European research collaborations, she has contributed to identifying and prioritising practical adaptation measures for more climate-resilient agriculture.
Her central message is to translate agroclimatic knowledge into timely, accessible, and actionable information for farmers, advisers, and decision-makers.
Jan Dusík
Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA)
Jan Dusík has spent his entire career in environmental and climate policy and law. He worked at the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic for 12 years, including as Minister of Environment in 2009-2010. In 2011, Mr Dusík became the Deputy Regional Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and was subsequently appointed as UNEP’s Regional Director for Europe, followed by serving as UNEP’s Principal Adviser on Strategic Engagement for the Arctic and Antarctic. In 2020, he joined the WWF Global Arctic Programme, leading the work on Arctic Sustainable Development and Governance. Between 2022-2024, he held the position of the Czech Government Envoy for International Climate Negotiations. In September 2024, he was appointed Deputy Director-General in DG Climate Action of the European Commission.
He holds a doctorate in law from Charles University in Prague and a Master of Science degree from the University of Oxford (Environmental Change Institute).
Pavel Zahradníček
CzechGlobe: Global Change Research Instituce Czech Academy of Sciences
Pavel Zahradníček is a researcher at the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CzechGlobe) and at the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute in Brno. He studied at the Department of Geography, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University in Brno.
Pavel Zahradníček has long been involved in the analysis of climate data. His main research topics include drought, wildfires, heatwaves, and the urban heat island effect.
He is also involved in the development and operation of numerous web applications focused on monitoring and forecasting hazardous weather and climate-related events. One of the most successful examples is InterSucho, a drought monitoring system that is currently operated on a global scale.
Moderator
Ana Nava
ERRIN: European Regions Research and Innovation Network
Ana is currently working at ERRIN as a Project & Policy Manager, focusing on EU blue economy policies and climate adaptation and mitigation. Her role supports the EU Missions on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities and on Ocean and Waters. She contributes to key Horizon Europe projects, including NetZeroCities and CO-WATERS, working closely with member regions and stakeholders across Europe. She also facilitates ERRIN’s Blue Economy Working Group, co-led by South Denmark, Turku/Southwest Finland, South Moravia (CZ), Emilia-Romagna (IT) and Comunitat Valenciana (ES).
Before joining ERRIN, Ana spent nearly seven years at AEIDL, supporting local innovation across the European innovation ecosystem, with a focus on the environment and climate action. She led EU-wide dissemination campaigns, stakeholder engagement and event coordination under the LIFE programme, and later served as Deputy Project Manager for Communities for Climate (C4C), a DG REGIO initiative.
About the event
The panel will explore drought, heatwaves and wildfires as part of Europe’s broader climate resilience challenges, after what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called ‘the summer of truth’. The event will bring together Czech research and EU policy perspectives, including the upcoming European Climate Resilience Framework and the EU Water Resilience Strategy. The discussion will look at current climate trends and future projections, and how climate data, monitoring tools, adaptation in agriculture and land management, and EU research and innovation can support practical responses. The focus will be on how scientific evidence can inform decisions and strengthen preparedness for climate impacts, including a presentation of the new European Climate Viewer and Navigator from the European Commission.