History of the Institute of Geography

 

In 1998, the Institute of Geography was established within the Faculty of Science, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, as the Department of Geography. It was founded by doc. RNDr. Zdenko Hochmuth, PhD., who also became the first head of the department. Within the first years, the department was profiled as a workplace aimed for the preparation of Geography teachers, offering the Teacher Education Programme including General Education Courses with the combination of Maths and Physics, later also with the combination of Biology, Chemics and Informatics. At that time, the research was basically oriented towards the fields of Physical Geography (Geomorphology, Karsology, Hydrology, Quarter Geology, Pedology), which reflected the profiling of some teachers (doc. RNDr. Zdenko Hochmuth, CSc., prof. RNDr. Ján Košťálik, DrSc., RNDr. Dušan Barabas, CSc.). 

In 2004, the Department of Geography was transformed into the Institute of Geography. The staff was significantly strengthened mainly by the experts in the field of Human and Physical Geography. Since 2005, the Institute of Geography has broadened its offer of study programmes to include single specialisation study programme Geography. At that time, prof. RNDr. Peter Spišiak, CSc. played a very important role in the development of the workplace. The research activities were gradually broadened to the field of Human Geography and Regional Geography – the study of transformation and urban, rural and suburban structures, as well as the problematics of population migration. 

The next impulse for the development of the Institute of Geography was raising funds from national and international grant schemes co-financed by the European Union. Thanks to these financial resources, the institute was able to build specialised laboratories. Since 2012, prof. Mgr. Jaroslav Hofierka, PhD. has found his position at the institute, which has subsequently resulted in the orientation of the institute work and scientific research on Geoinformatics and Remote Sensing. Since 2013, he has become  the head of the institute. 

In 2013, the Institute was internally reorganised to better reflect the scientific-research profile of the employees. In the same year, three new departments were created – Department of Physical Geography, Department of Human and Regional Geography, Department of Geoinformatics. In 2014, the Department of Geoinformatics was strengthened by the arrival of a new professor, prof. Ing. Vladimír Sedlák, PhD., who had extensive experience in the field of Geodesy and Applied Geoinformatics. Since 2016, the quality of personel reached a higher level by habilitation of doc. Mgr. Michal Gallay, PhD. at the Faculty of Science of Comenius University in Bratislava in the field of Physical Geography. Subsequently in 2018, doc. RNDr. Ján Kaňuk, PhD. habilitated at the Faculty of Mining and Geology, VSB – Technical University of Ostrava in the field of Geoinformatics, and in 2019, doc. Ing. Katarína Bónová and doc. Mgr. Ladislav Novotný, PhD. habilitated also at the Faculty of Science of Comenius University in Bratislava in the field of Geology and Human Geography, respectively.

The career development of the staff enabled the enhancement of research and education at our institute. In 2017, our institute accreditated the doctoral study programme Geoinformatics and Remote Sensing, which is until today the only Doctoral study programme in the field of Geoinformatics in Slovakia.