The law pertaining to public research institutions has by now accomplished 10 years of its real life, and by coincidence, right now an amendment to the law is being considered by the Parliament, which amendment, if adopted, would constitute the first substantial intervention with the body of the law ever. The article analyses the substance of the indicated type of legal entity, notably while comparing it with another type known to Czech law, the semi-budgeted organization. To illustrate the situation of semi-autonomous organizations, it compares the national meteorological services of the Czech Republic and of Germany, concluding that their legal and economic situations are highly similar. Thus the argument used in its time to foster the adoption of the new legislation, i.e. that our semi-budgeted organizations have no analogy abroad, was clearly false. Notwithstanding that, this author’s assessment of the law pertaining to public research institutions is overally positive. A negative assessment however deserve the amendments to the law which are now envisaged. These do not reflect experience with the implementation of the law, but rather only decrease the level of autonomy of public research institutions, being in that respect contradictory to the basic merits of the law pertaining to public research institutions.