Ostrava University President Petr Kopecký on AI, Steinbeck, and the fight against brain drain
Petr Kopecký, President of Ostrava University, has spent nearly three decades teaching and researching English and American literature. In an interview for Czechast, he spoke about the role of universities in defending democracy, the challenge of integrating AI in education, and his passion for John Steinbeck. He also addressed the future of Ostrava and the ongoing struggle to keep young talent in the Moravia-Silesia region.
Petr Kopecký is not only President of Ostrava University but also a scholar of American literature and environmental thought. Raised in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, he has spent most of his professional life in Ostrava, where he was elected president in 2023 after nearly three decades of teaching.
For Kopecký, the meaning of academic leadership begins with a simple conviction:
“I see quality education as a key to many of the challenges we face today.”
Roots in literature and freedom
Growing up in the 1990s, Kopecký found his way into English and American culture through music and books. Punk rock, Beat poetry, and Romantic literature became a gateway to a wider world. He even traced his early love of language back to reading Karl May’s Winnetou novels and listening to the Beatles.
His academic path eventually led him to doctoral studies in Olomouc, where he was mentored by the late Josef Jařab, the first freely elected rector in Czechoslovakia after the Velvet Revolution. Jařab, Kopecký recalls, was not just a teacher but a model of how intellectual life and public service can intersect.
That experience shaped Kopecký’s view of universities as places where civic responsibility must thrive. In his own words:
“Universities are strongholds of democratic values—places where those values should be cultivated and, when necessary, defended.”
Kopecký’s scholarly focus combines literature with environmentalism.
“I was perhaps the first ecocritic in the country,” he explained, noting that the field is now well established across Czech universities. For him, literature provides something raw data cannot: a way to move imagination and emotion in times of ecological crisis.
AI in the classroom
No interview with a university president in 2025 could avoid the subject of artificial intelligence. Kopecký sees AI as a tool that cannot be wished away but must be handled critically.
“We cannot and we don’t want to ban the use of AI to any students. We are just trying to find new ways of assigning written homework or essays, assignments that sometimes can make use of the products of AI.”
Ostrava University, he says, already has general guidelines in place and is working toward more specific rules for bachelor’s and master’s theses. For Kopecký, the main challenge is to ensure that students remain able to think independently and critically even while using new technologies.
California and Steinbeck
Beyond the classroom, Kopecký has a long-standing research interest in American cultural history, particularly California. He describes the state as a “trendsetter” in science, technology, and environmental thought, a place where developments often ripple outward to the rest of the United States and the wider world.
That perspective connects naturally to his work on John Steinbeck, whose writings continue to resonate deeply with Czech readers. From The Grapes of Wrath—translated in record time during the Second World War—to the underground poet Ivan Martin Jirous, known as Magor, Steinbeck has inspired generations across political divides. Kopecký’s research emphasizes how the author was often misinterpreted in communist Czechoslovakia as pro-communist, when in reality his work reflected more complex, often critical perspectives.
The future of Ostrava
Looking ahead, Kopecký wants Ostrava University to balance global competitiveness with local responsibility. He highlights the university’s motto—“open to the world and working for the region”—as a guiding principle. That means not only excelling in research but also addressing regional issues such as economic transformation and brain drain.
He is candid about the challenges: public funding for higher education is under pressure, and too many young people still leave for Prague or abroad. Yet he remains optimistic, pointing to the university’s role in training professionals who stay. For example, more than 75 percent of graduates from the Faculty of Education and over 80 percent from the Faculty of Medicine remain in the region, providing essential services in schools and hospitals. Kopecký also stresses the need for cooperation across sectors.
“We need to make use of the synergies between the commercial sector, obviously the local and regional authorities and universities and schools. And I got a feeling that this cooperation is getting better and better and new platforms are being created.”
In his vision, Ostrava’s brownfields are not just scars of an industrial past but opportunities for renewal, provided that investment, innovation, and education come together.
For President Petr Kopecký, universities are more than places of study. They are defenders of democracy, incubators of ideas, and partners in regional development. His words underline both the urgency and the hope of his mission: cultivating knowledge not only for its own sake, but for the future of a city, a region, and a country.
For more listen the complete episode of Czechast.
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Czechast, Radio Prague International
Czechast is a regular RPI podcast about Czech and Moravian culture, history, and economy.
