Dedication

Pavel Drábek graduated from Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague in 1977 and obtained a Candidate of Sciences (equiv. Ph.D.) and Doctor of Sciences (DrSc.) from Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences Prague in 1981 and 1990, respectively. In these years, he worked under strong influence of the “Prague school of mathematics” represented by Svatopluk Fučik, Alois Kufner, Jindrich Necas and other notable faculty members from Charles University, Prague, and the Mathematical Institute of Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Soon after his graduation, he became a faculty member of the department of mathematics of VSSE (Vysoka skola strojni a elektrotechnicka) in Plzen, which is known as University of West Bohemia now.

Throughout his career he significantly contributed (and is still actively contributing) to development of nonlinear functional analysis, nonlinear differential equations, bifurcation theory, critical point theory. His favorite topics (that can be traced back to his years spent in Prague) are nonlinear problems related to the Fučik spectrum and Fredholm Alternative for the p-Laplacian.

Pavel Drábek is author or co-author of close to 200 research papers, and several monographs and articles in collective volumes. For his outstanding achievements in science, he obtained several national awards such as The Bernard Bolzano Honorary Medal “For Merits in the Mathematical Sciences” in 2013, awarded by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. He established an extensive network of international collaborators, which he often invited to the department of mathematics of the University of West Bohemia. He was serving as department head of the department of mathematics of the University of West Bohemia for close to 20 years, during which the department strongly benefited from his mathematical expertise and international contacts. He was an advisor of dozens of master students, Ph.D students, and postdocs. At this moment, he is the advisor of one Ph.D. student. Last but not least, it can be said (at least some of his former Ph.D. students say), that Pavel Drábek established his “Plzen school of mathematics”, which hopefully will last in the future.