Notice of death

We are very sad to announce, that our colleague Tomas Ratinger passed away on July 10, 2024.
He was a senior scientist in the Strategic Studies Department of the Technology Centre Prague. At the same time, he was an associate professor of the Tropical Agriculture and Ecology at the CULS, Prague. Before moving to the TC Prague he was head of the department for “Agricultural Markets” and a vice head of the Research Section of the Institute for Agricultural Economics and Information (UZEI) in Prague. Between 4/2005 and 1/2009 he was the visiting scientist and the leader of “Agricultural and Rural Development” research group (SUSTAG) at the “Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Economy” unit (AgriLife) of the JRC/IPTS in Seville (Spain). His main task was to position socio-economic research on agriculture and rural development within the research agenda of IPTS and to communicate research needs and results with DG-AGRI. In the period 1993-2005, he was a senior agricultural economist at the Research Institute for Agricultural Economics (VUZE) in Prague: he was consequently head of the department for Economic and Structural development of Agriculture and head of the department for Agricultural and Rural Development.

Tomas Ratinger graduated at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, where he obtained his PhD in 1996. Tomas has engaged in agri-economic research since 1986. His main focus has been on quantitative economic methods (econometric and programming models). In 1991/1992 he completed his economic education at Wye College, University of London. In association with the analyses of property rights reforms and with the increasing social pressure on the integration of environmental protection in the sectoral policies, thus in the agricultural policy, Tomas expanded his research focus also to these issues and it has brought him to the adoption of the concept of the new institutional economics in his work.  In the early 1990s his research focused mainly on economic and agricultural transitions and their impact on food consumption and food supply. Technical assistance in this respect to Central and Eastern European Countries was the main task of his work for FAO in 1996-1997. Since the late 1990s, his research focus has shifted toward the assessment of impacts of EU Accession and CAP reforms on agriculture, rural development and the overall regional and national economy.  Later, his research topics included: innovation and knowledge transfer, competitiveness of the Czech agriculture and food processing, demand and production of renewable energy and environmental goods and services. Geographically, his research interests moved gradually from exceptionally Czech centred to European and Global issues like food security and sustainable consumption. Tomas applied advanced quantitative, qualitative and participatory research approaches. 
We will all miss him not only as an expert but mainly as a beloved colleague and an all-round talented person.

Here you can turn on a special application that was created as a memory of Tomas and maps the network of his collaboration with other 85 co-authors on all his 114 RIV results.