Deloitte Outstanding Thesis (DOT) Award winners announced

On August 30, 2021, the Deloitte Outstanding Thesis Award (DOT Award) was presented at Deloitte headquarters in Prague. 

The DOT Award was established in 2018 thanks to the long-term partnership between IES and Deloitte, which has been in place since 2014. With its name, the DOT Award not only refers to the Deloitte logo, but also represents a symbolic closure of the challenging study at IES FSV UK.The examination committees nominate approximately top 10% of the best graduate theses. Later, the program directors evaluate the nominations based on the IES thesis grading criteria. The winning papers are finally presented to Deloitte representatives.

The presentations, followed by the awarding of diplomas and prizes, and a networking reception were attended by the representatives of Deloitte Marek Romancov, Roman Lux and Petr Čihák, Deloitte Corporate Chair and coordinator of the cooperation at IES Jiří Novák, Alumni Association Coordinator and Career Advisor Eliška Krohová and the 2021 DOT award winners Kateřina Kroupová, Marie Ptáčníková, Lukáš Janásek, Petr Čala and Katarína Gömöryová. The opportunity to receive the diplomas in person to talk with the company representatives and fellow alumni in a pleasant atmosphere was also taken used by some of the 2020 students whose presentation had to be held online due to the pandemic situation. 

Marek Romancov, partner in the tax department of Deloitte, appreciated in his opening speech that the graduation theses of our students, in addition to their excellent quality, often have a significant sociological overlap or use modern research methods. He also mentioned that IES FSV UK graduates who decided to connect their future career with Deloitte are a great contribution to the team.

Jiří Novák also highlighted the courage of the authors of the theses to approach interesting issues and use challenging methods as well as the courage of the Deloitte representatives, who do not require any specific mandatory topics for this competition, but support the diversity of topics that the IES students are really interested in.

And what did the laureates themselves say?
All the authors of the award-winning papers agreed that they had received exceptional support at IES in the form of excellent guidance, frequent and helpful consultations, and valuable advice concerning their research. According to the presenters, the supervisors Jozef Baruník, Barbara Pertold-Gebicka, Zuzana Havránková, Tomáš Havránek and Jana Votápková had all have a significant impact on the final quality of the awarded papers. We hope that this friendly and at the same time effective cooperation between teachers and students, as well as good relations between our alumni will always be something that we can be proud of. 

The awarded theses' details, including abstracts and reviews, can be found at the links below:

• Bc. Petr Čala
  Do Money Rewards Motivate People? A Meta-Analysis
   
• Bc. Katarína Gömöryová
  Payoff of having children - Do elderly parents of more children live in a nursing home less often?
   
• Mgr. Kateřina Kroupová:
  The Impact of Student Employment on Educational Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis
   
• Mgr. Marie Ptáčníková, MSc:
  Investigation of cross-country differences in student performance in standardized tests: the role of modern and traditional teaching methods
   
• Mgr. Lukáš Janásek:
  Acquisition of Costly Information in Data-Driven Decision Making
   

Congratulations once again and thank you for the exceptional effort you put into the selection of the topic and the exceptional quality of your graduate theses!