Academic Centre for Students Activities

About us

Academic centre for students activities (ACSA) is a non-profit non-governmental organization. Its main goal is to help active university students. For such volunteers, who are working for student organizations from the whole Czech Republic, ACSA offers educational courses to develop knowledge and skills that are necessary for their activities, provides counseling, personal development and the possibility of further support they may need.

ACSA was founded in 2002 as a part of the Brno University of Technology (BUT). From the very beginning ACSA was oriented not only to BUT students but to the active students from the whole country. ACSA employees also participated in many international activities (implementation of the Bologna process in the Czech Republic - the "How are we doing with Bologna or Bologna process through the view of V4 countries student representatives" project, conference "What to do with Bologna?", a project dealing with comparing the status of students V4 countries "Professionalization student members of academic self-government in Visegrad countries" or long-term cooperation with ISTU, Russia). In 2009 ACSA became an independent organization and began to provide a much greater range of services to their target audience.

For more than 15 years, over 6,000 students have completed ACSA courses. Many of them directly at their university where internationally certified project managers from ACSA introduced, innovated or directly taught project management. Despite the form of NGO ACSA can therefore be classified as a higher education institution. ACSA information system (IS) is an important tool when working with the target groups, IS includes over 4000 registered users and around 300 student organizations. This scope of activity makes it a unique system within the Czech Republic.

What is our target group?

  • Student representatives in higher education governance.
  • Students who are really interested in.
  • Active members of student organizations and associations.

What we do?

  • Every autumn we organize national student conference or a two day workshop/meeting where student organizations can exchange their knowledge.
  • We educate students in the field of higher education legislation, project management, the art of communication and argumentation and so on.
  • We make research in the field of functioning of academic senates and in the field of student quality evaluation.
  • We participate both in national and international conferences and so get the latest news and information.
  • We solve particular problems with students.
  • We provide auspices for activities of Young Project Manager Group.
  • We provide counselling service for students in these spheres: organization of student activities, foundation and operation of student organizations and associations, student activities connected with their work in self-governmental bodies of higher education institutions.
  • We administrate an electronic database of student organizations and associations in the Czech Republic.
  • We are interested in Bologna process and its implementation.

Why we do it?

In 2001 the first national student conference „Current Role and Status of University Students“ was held in Brno. Together with the participants we have agreed that the necessity to systematically reinforce the students’ status at higher education institutions is still topical. In the fields, in which is the status already at the sufficient level, we aim at keeping this level and also at increasing its quality.

There are frequently emphasized partnership relations among students and teachers in the field of higher education. The status of students   in this sphere is not always respected in the academic environment and that is why we would like to help to improve this aspect of student’s role in the civil society.

We believe that our activity is one of the ways leading to professionalization of student members in higher education governance. We are convinced that student senators equipped with a good knowledge and with the support of our organization will be beneficial not only to their universities but also to the society as a whole.