Among the RRPP's principal instruments to foster the social sciences in the Western Balkans is to provide funding for research projects, emanating from researchers in the region. The programme's initial start was in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Macedonia, subsequently enlarging its geographic scope to Albania and Kosovo but also including projects involving partners from several of all the countries mentioned. A call for research projects from Serbia recently now concluded the RRPP's objective to cover the entire region.

This call, open to all research groups in Serbia, was highly competitive, with 30 applications being submitted on 12 April. Following the evaluation process by both the RRPP's Scientific and Steering Board eight research projects were recently approved. The variety of subjects is broad, ranging from the media, information society, education, youth and social issues to economics. In pursuit of the programme's ambition to uplift both young and female researchers, 20 PhD candidates will be involved, while the gender balance was well respected with 30 female and 12 male researchers being members of the eight research groups.

On a final note, and reflecting the institution's scientific capacity, three of the eight approved projects emanate from research groups based at the University of Belgrade, namely one from the Center for Media Research (Faculty of Political Sciences) and two from the Institute for Sociological Research (Faculty of Philosophy).

The coordination of these research projects is ensured by the newly appointed RRPP Local Coordination Unit (LCU) hosted by the Institute of Economic Sciences in Belgrade.

For more information on all approved research projects, including abstracts, please consult the RRPP's Website »»