Jiří Hejkrlík graduated from doctoral studies at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague and specializes in the effectiveness of different forms of international development cooperation. He works primarily at the intersection of analysis and practice, with a strong interest in how development interventions function within complex institutional and socio-economic systems. Over time, he has come to see his professional role as a bridge between donor language—frameworks, indicators, and theories of change—and the lived realities of local actors, where informal rules, incentives, and everyday constraints often shape outcomes more than formal project designs.

He is an active manager and evaluator of international agricultural development projects across Eastern Europe (Georgia, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Ukraine), Central Asia (Mongolia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan), and Africa (Angola, Ethiopia, and Kenya). His work focuses on translating strategic objectives into context-sensitive interventions, while also ensuring that local realities are not oversimplified to fit reporting requirements. This bridging role is both technical and ethical: helping donors understand why certain assumptions do not hold in practice, and supporting local partners in navigating donor expectations without losing ownership of their priorities.

In parallel, Jiří Hejkrlík is a member of the Department of Economics and Development, where he focuses on agricultural trade, market access for small farmers, rural institutions, and farmers’ cooperatives in the Global South. He also serves as Acting Chairman of the Board of Fairtrade Czech Republic and Slovakia and is Director of the Cooperative Research Group. Through research, teaching, evaluation, and governance roles, he seeks to turn practical experience into learning—treating international development not as a technical problem to be solved, but as a long-term, collective process requiring critical reflection, contextual understanding, and responsibility.