All of the faculty institutes are involved in research and some of them in joint research projects financed by EU funds (such as Culture 2000). Therefore, there is a great variety of research at FA and the rich content covering key research areas: countries – springs – culture in Central Europe history, archaeological research of prehistoric times and Middle Ages (Tešetice, Pohansko, Rokštejn), area linguistic and literature studies, clinical psychology, medieval Latin (publishing M. Jan Hus works). Research orientations include studies of serious general psychology issues; research in general and social education; Czech and Central Europe history research including the auxiliary historical sciences of Middle Ages and Modern Times; art history focused on architecture or plastic and painting arts; musicology and fine arts research (fields of esthetics and theatre and film production), however as much as ethnology, ethnography and religions research. Explored are linguistic and literature studies over a wide range of languages from general linguistics through contemporary spoken language and translations and pondered and published are philosophic interpretations of the present days key phenomena, Czech thought history of the 19th and 20th centuries and T. G. Masaryk works.
FA’s weight for distinctive orientation to research has obviously grown recently: when compared, the total sum of acquired funds for research in 1999 and 2005 increased more than five times. Every year, the faculty involves in more than eighty grant projects in all fields of research and the faculty ranked second among all the MU faculties after the Faculty of Science in the number of all projects financed by outsourced funds of various origin. Funding of the new research plans made the basis for establishing the “Interdisciplinary centre of prehistoric to peak Middle Ages social structure research” for archaeology and natural sciences to collaborate and the “Central Europe history research centre” contributed by the fields of history, art history, archive studies and Latin philology.
Since 1968, FA has hosted the Summer Slavonic (Bohemistic) Studies School in the middle of summer every year. The established Division of Czech for Foreigners that teaches foreigners Czech language all over the year resumed its successful tradition. The FA houses also the UNESCO Chair of Museology and World Heritage, established in 1994 to be the first UNESCO chair in the Czech Republic.
The faculty offers special and teaching courses in diversified fields within the degree programmes of philosophy, humanities, history, information and library studies, philology, education, psychology, theory and history of the arts and culture, teaching for secondary schools. The studies run in on-site single- or double-field mode (of bachelor’s, long-cycle master’s, master’s programme), for some of the fields also in combined mode. Numerous fields of study also run doctoral programmes intended for research beginnings of young researchers. FA organise special courses and additional teaching courses in some fields within the lifelong learning framework. A prove of students’ permanent interest in the fields of humanities is the number of FA students today is the highest among MU faculties (more than 7 thousand students in 2005).
The FA graduates can get positions in cultural, educational and training institutions of various orientations, in government administration, in mass media or private sector, or, after graduating from an additional teaching course or a teaching master’s degree programme they may work as secondary school teachers. Universities, research institutes or prominent museum institutions may employ the most able ones in researcher positions.