INTERVIEW WITH THE NEW DEAN By Klára Jiřičná

In March 2021, Prof. Patrick Van Damme became the second dean of the Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences (FTA) but the first dean ever as a foreign national in the history of the Czech University of Life Sciences. A professor in tropical agronomy, Patrick Van Damme speaks 6 languages (and knows about a few more…) and is retiring later this year from his home university in Belgium, but has a lot of energy and plans to consolidate FTA´s international ranking and further develop its international mandate.