The Kellner Family Foundation is a family foundation in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

established by

Petr Kellner Petr Kellner (20 May 1964 – 27 March 2021) was a Czech billionaire entrepreneur, the founder and majority shareholder (98.93%) of the PPF Group. At the time of his death, he had an estimated net worth of $17.5 billion, making him the wealthi ...

and his wife

Renáta Kellnerová Renáta Kellnerová (born 4 July 1967) is the widow of Petr Kellner, Czech billionaire entrepreneur and founder of the PPF Group, who died in March 2021 in a helicopter crash. Kellnerová's husband, Petr Kellner, founded the PPF Group in the ...

in 2009. Between 2009 and 2021, the foundation disbursed over CZK 1.6 billion in support of educational activities in the Czech Republic.

History

The Foundation was established in 2009 and provided 9 million CZK to aid several municipalities after the floods of 2010. In 2011, the Foundation reported that it had been merged with the Educa foundation in 2011. According to media reports, the Foundation donated in total CZK 91 million during the year 2013. In 2014, the Foundation exceeded that amount by granting over CZK 97 million. In 2017, the Foundation donated almost CZK 88 million. In 2018, the Foundation donated CZK 88 million. In 2019, the Foundation donated CZK 89.5 million.

Description

The Kellner Family Foundation focuses its donations on measures to improve the quality of

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

at public

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

in the

, namely through its ''Helping Schools Succeed'' project. It also supports financially disadvantaged students of the Open Gate grammar school in Babice, near Prague. The Foundation's "Universities" project also provides grants to Czech students to study at universities in the Czech Republic and abroad. The Foundation has also made generous donations to individuals and

institutions An institution is a humanly devised structure of rules and norms that shape and constrain social behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions and ...

working on projects focused on

health Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, p ...

educational Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education also fol ...

and

cultural Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

activities. The Foundation channels its efforts into four major projects: *The " Open Gate" project supports academically gifted children from foster homes, broken families or otherwise challenging socio-economic environments by providing them with education and accommodation at the eight-year grammar school of the same name. Since the school's establishment in 2005, about one-half of its students have received full or partial grants from the Foundation. The Foundation grants around CZK 40 million annually. Hundreds of students have studied or continue to study at the Open Gate School thanks to grants from The Kellner Family Foundation. To date, 442 students have benefited from grants exceeding a total of CZK 615 million. *Similar to Open Gate is the “Universities” project that grants money for school fees, travel costs and living expenses to talented students so that they can study at universities abroad and in the Czech Republic. Thanks to these grants, around 50 students leave the country to study abroad, or get support to enroll at Czech universities and other higher education institutions annually. In the academic year 2012/2013 the group of 50 students has been granted funds. In the academic year 2014/2015 the grants have been provided to the group of 57 students. In the academic year 2019/2020 the grants have been provided to the group of 61 students. *''Helping Schools Succeed'' is a project that provides selected elementary schools with funds to improve the qualifications of their teachers and principals. The Foundation currently works with more than 860 teachers and, through them, supports more than 9,500 students. *The ''Science'' project supported the work of Czech oncology researchers. Multi-year grants were allocated to exceptional scientists with successful international backgrounds and also to talented researchers who had just started their careers, including fresh graduates from medical or natural science faculties. In 2013, the first three research groups received grants for 4–5 years whose overall sum totalled CZK 8.5m. Within the next five years, the Foundation was projected to provide around CZK 38m in grants and financial support. To date, grants have been given to three teams of researchers. One team, led by Jan Brábek from Charles University's Faculty of Science in on the ''Analysis of the Plasticity of Cancer Cell Invasiveness.'' The other two teams are led by Jaroslav Truksa from the Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, and Jiří Bartek, who heads a laboratory at the Danish Cancer Society Research Center in Copenhagen, Denmark.

References

External links

Official website The Kellner Family Foundation

Official website Open Gate - Grammar and Primary School
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kellner Family Foundation Foundations based in the Czech Republic Organizations established in 2009 2009 establishments in the Czech Republic