This year’s fellowship theme invites researchers to explore how young people across Southeast Europe imagine and enact democratic futures amid persistent structural and geopolitical tensions. In a context marked by stalled EU integration, youth disenchantment, state capture, and dual deficits in ecological and digital capacities, young people in the region are not simply passive observers of democratic backsliding—they are active participants in crafting new civic meanings and democratic aspirations.

Rather than viewing youth as a “target group” or a future electorate waiting to be integrated into predefined institutions, we recognize them as producers of political knowledge and agents of democratic and policy innovation. Youth agency is conceptualized not merely as protest or participation, but as the capacity to generate new political imaginaries—collective, affective, and symbolic visions of how politics could be otherwise.

The project foregrounds two interlinked thematic pillars:

• New Political Imaginaries of Youth: How do young people across the region picture Europe’s and regional social and political future? What metaphors, historical references, and cultural narratives do they deploy to articulate their relationship with democratic institutions, identity, and regional affiliation? Fellows are invited to research how these imaginaries inform youth’s sense of belonging, resistance, and possibility.
• Eco-Digital Youth Futures: How do young people engage with the intertwined challenges of ecological crisis and digital transformation? What role do digital tools play in their civic expression or environmental advocacy? What kinds of hybrid “eco-digital imaginaries” emerge from youth discourse and practice?

This theme challenges researchers to think beyond youth as recipients of policy or subjects of demographic concern. It invites them to trace how youth understand and contest the limits of existing political configurations, and how their ideas might inform more inclusive, participatory, and just futures for the region and Europe as a whole.

The fellowship program aims to blend theoretical inquiry, participatory fieldwork, and policy design. Fellows are encouraged to explore how youth-led imaginaries intersect with broader structural constraints and challenges: digitalization and digital exclusion, green transition and environmental injustice, democratic resilience and weak institutions, and shifting geopolitical alignments.

By embedding research in student-led workshops, regional collaborations, and policy co-creation, the fellowship offers a unique opportunity to contribute to democratic renewal not by proposing abstract reforms, but by grounding proposals in lived experiences and emerging visions of those often excluded from traditional decision-making spaces.

Research will be anchored in real-world processes, including:

• Deliberative Workshops with students in six Western Balkan capitals
• A Surgery Week for collaborative synthesis at Moise Palace (Cres Island)
• A Policy Hackathon on eco-digital futures
• The Academic Policy Lab 2.0, a regional platform linking research and public policy

The Fellowship Call is built on the academic synergies affirmed at the 2024 Rectors’ Forum of Southeast Europe and the Western Balkans. Hosted by universities in Rijeka and Belgrade, with co-hosts across the region, the program invited fellows to spend up to four weeks conducting research, gathering data, and engaging with scholarly communities at partner institutions. The fellowship theme, Change in the Balkans – Strategic Interventions for Democratic Europe, encouraged action-oriented projects aimed at filling knowledge gaps and developing solutions relevant for advocacy and democratic resilience.

Applicants were invited to explore three main areas of transformation: economic change, with a focus on pension sustainability and business succession; digital change, addressing connectivity, literacy, and security in the regional digital space; and green change, centred on the challenges of energy transition, sustainability, and environmental protection. By engaging with these intertwined crises, the fellowship sought to foster innovative, regionally coordinated approaches that strengthen democracy and align Southeast Europe more closely with European values.

Every society needs a vision for the future. Societies in Southeast Europe seem to be caught in the vicious circle of the permanent present built on the remnants of nationalist and exclusive accounts of the past – with a progressive vision missing. Zygmunt Bauman’s notion of “retrotopia” translated into regional politics would equal an inspiration of old-fashioned type of politics focused not on a future-to-be-created, but on an abandoned and undead past made of the residual heat of the exclusive nation-state idea, utterly authoritarian vision of the society, hierarchical decision-making processes led by a strong man, a clientelist economy, with total neglect of progressive, ecological, gender-sensitive and just visions of society to boot.

The focus on confronting the past through legal processes, while essential to personal and criminal responsibility for war crimes, has had little effect on broader public attitudes, and the cathartic impact has been largely absent. Instead of fostering solidarity, regional friendship
and unity, governments fuel divisions based on the ethnic principle and a sort of self-imposed political segregation of ethnic groups. As a result, any “non-nationalist” politics look like naïve idealism. Progressive actors, struggling to make inroads in confronting the past, find
themselves losing hard-won ground. Revitalization of a positive European vision is crucial. The region desperately needs visions and policies that advocate for civic, democratic, multi-ethnic, multi-confessional, open, plural, and inclusive societies within the region.

To confront the past, looking back is not enough. Cultivating a culture based on facts, mindful of the past and allowing productive oblivion is indispensable. Yet, equally important is to formulate and foster a “culture of a shared future” in the region – bringing forward narratives, evidence, and politics to replace a culture of hostility with a common vision of a joint future.

With this call, we aim to produce substantial new knowledge that will help us:

1. critically assess the situation in dealing with the past, and frankly consider the successes and failures of particular attempts
2. unpack practices and commonalities from the past and explore present progressive and solidary practices able to escape the vicious retrotopian circle in the region;
3. examine the possibilities of forging and promoting effective counternarratives rooted in a culture of a shared future;
4. explore innovative social and spatial models and tools for a more socially and culturally sustainable shared future.

Although we will consider excellent proposals that are not strictly related to the main topics, we encourage candidates to focus on:

• Conducting regional comparative empirical research on the evolution of narratives and reconciliation actions from the 1990s to the present, and how they would build a culture of shared future.
• Performing a regional comparative enquiry of educational and cultural institutions, civil society and the intellectual community to understand how these key actors affect a shared sense of the future in the region. We particularly welcome an analysis of the role of higher education and joint regional HE programs.
• Undertaking a regional comparative analysis of media and political narratives pertinent to the project in the past decade, including coverage of culture, heritage, reconciliation, etc., leading to findings that better promote the “culture of shared future.”
• Developing a regional comparative study of new forms of spatial thinking, alternative models and tools of sustainable development fostering integrated, strategic and data driven planning and design knowledge, considering resilience, urban environment and policy making as a complex connection between technical, cultural, social, and economic factors, as well as of strategic, organizational, and spatial considerations.

A temporary end or even momentary cessation of violence – is the first and unconditional condition for the institution of a truce or peace or eternal peace. How do we stop or delay acts that could be defined as “bad” or “evil,” acts that carry destruction and erasure? We do not have accurate explanations as to whether it is possible to end extreme violence permanently. And convert it into something desirable that eventually prevents any future breakout of violence. Extreme violence in the shape of war is a social phenomenon constitutive of human development throughout history. It requires organized social action, collective intentionality, systematic use of weapons, sophisticated linguistic coordination, and ritualism.

The dilemma that violence and war could serve peace and a new order or the building of new and just institutions is as old as the idea of democracy. Can the histories of violence and destructive actions be reduced exclusively to discussions about the number and sequence of harmful acts necessary to establish acceptable social change? Max Weber underscored those social entities having a coercive nature, and violence is a constitutive element of the state and institutional order per se. The focus on the end of extreme violence, not on defense against violence leading to a just war against an aggressor or unjust enemy – then prioritizes the (re)construction of instruments and institutes that prevent and urgently stop all kinds of nullifying acts. Concepts such as risk, urgency, negotiation, request, force, threat, bluff, etc., are the first protocols to end extreme violence. Are there others?

The Center for Advanced Studies invites applications from scholars and artists interested in participating in a new, critical dialogue on the End of Violence from various disciplinary perspectives.

The CAS SEE Fellowship is intended to provide support for early-stage researchers. Inspired by the cooperation of previous generations of CAS SEE Fellows and their creation of long-term thematic synergies among researchers, the upcoming CAS SEE Fellowship will stimulate fellows to present their research in Rijeka and other regional centers. Alongside pursuing their independent research interests, fellows will attend regular CAS SEE regional conferences and seminars.

Fellows are expected to spend two weeks during their fellowship on the island of Cres at the Moise Palace, a Renaissance palace managed by the University of Rijeka. The Moise Palace serves as a research retreat, a regional hub for advancing social science, humanities, art, and interdisciplinary research, and a space of engagement and exchange with local communities. As in previous years, Fellows will co-organize the program for their group’s retreats to Moise based on their individual and collective interests and needs.

For applicants coming from arts, the applications should include a 2-3 minute application presentation besides a textual proposal and CV. Please provide a link for the uploaded video materials in the “List up to three of your publications” slot in the Application form. It is up to applicants how they want to video present their project (interview, videography, drawings etc.). Lastly, please note that applicants coming from arts do not need to hold a PhD.

The call is aimed at Ukrainian scholars – both home and abroad – who are affected by war, as well as those from the Russian Federation who, because of their opposition to the war and the regime, are seeking academic research opportunities outside of Russia. Its purpose is to provide conditions for scholars to develop their research projects, which they are unable to do within the abovementioned conditions of war or under a repressive regime. There are no strict thematic requirements of the call; research topics can cover broad area of humanities and social sciences and arts, including those where our institutions have greater expertise (see websites), such as democracy studies, social engagement, social movements, philosophy, urbanism, educational studies, nationalism studies etc… Fundamental, applied and interdisciplinary research projects are equally welcome.

Center for Advanced Studies Southeast Europe (CAS SEE) is the first research centre in advanced studies founded on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. It promotes freedom of research and ensures the necessary prerequisites for innovative, intellectual, and scientific development, striving to strengthen transnational and regional scientific cooperation on a range of socially pressing issues relevant to the Humanistic and Social Sciences and Arts.

Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory (IFDT) is the leading research institution in HSS in Serbia; founded in the early 1980s by the dissidents expelled from the University of Belgrade for their unorthodox, publicly voiced views, it retains its critical edge, focusing on engagement, philosophy, social movements, deliberative democracy, regional cooperation and reconciliation. IFDT is a part of the Open Society University Network, a global partnership of educational institutions that integrates learning and the advancement of knowledge–in the social sciences, the humanities, the sciences and the arts, promotes civic engagement on behalf of open societies and expands access to higher education.

Eligible applicants include Ukrainian and Russian citizens, residing home or abroad, who are either PhD students or obtained their PhD in the last 10 years and are enrolled or affiliated with a Ukrainian/Russian higher institution. Fellowships are flexible, with possibility to opt for non-resident and resident term. The stipend will correspond to an average Croatian/Serbian researchers’ monthly salary. In addition, we will be covering travel costs and participate in flat rental for residing fellows.

Fellows can suggest projects starting from January 2023 and ranging between 4 and 12 months in length. Scholars applying for a residence can chose as their residence between Belgrade, Novi Sad, Rijeka, as well as other Western Balkan institutions within the broad CAS/IFDT network, reflecting our focus on regional and international cooperation. Resident scholars will be able to use office space and will be assisted in providing accommodation and other related issues. Both non-resident and resident scholars are due to attend two Fellows meetings during the course of the Fellowship, taking place in Rijeka and Belgrade, and to regularly attend seminars and events organized by host institution.