History of the Department of Cybernetics

The Faculty of Applied Sciences was established on 1 July 1990 by resolution of the Academic Senate of the former College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (VŠSE) in Pilsen.

The original College was founded in autumn 1949 as part of the Czech Technical University in Prague (ČVUT). From 1950 it constituted an autonomous faculty, and in 1953 it acquired  an independent status of a college headed by a rector.  The original teaching orientation of the newly established technical college in Pilsen was aimed at mechanical and electrical engineering. In 1960, two independent faculties came into existence at the College – Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Both began to develop rapidly. New study programmes were founded, reflecting the need for technically educated experts in the West Bohemia region, especially the Škoda plant in Pilsen. The diversifying study programmes necessitated setting up field-oriented work groups of pedagogues and industry experts. These work teams gave rise to field departments responsible for the training of engineers in individual study programmes. It was this period that saw the origins of the Departments of Cybernetics at VŠSE and, subsequently, the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, first aimed at automation and regulation and later also at cybernetics.