Profile of Center for Advanced Studies Southeast Europe, University of Rijeka

Founded in 1973, the University of Rijeka has matured into a modern European university and Center of excellence whose impact extends beyond the region. With a total of 11 faculties and four departments, we are a research, science, and education-oriented university that supports social and economic development in our community, the City of Rijeka, and the wider region.

The Center for Advanced Studies Southeast Europe (CAS SEE) is an organizational unit of the University of Rijeka specializing in the social sciences, humanities, and arts.

The vision of the Center is to promote freedom of research and ensure the necessary prerequisites for innovative, intellectual, and scientific development. It strives to strengthen transnational and regional scientific cooperation on various socially pressing issues relevant to the Humanistic, Social Sciences, and Arts.

The impetus for establishing CAS SEE came after the successful organization of several international conferences and workshops in Belgrade, Zagreb, Prishtine, and Sarajevo between 2010 and 2012 and via numerous exchanges with regional and international partner institutions and scholars. The Balkan Trust for Democracy, German Marshall Fund, Erste Stiftung, Goethe Institut, Institut Français de Belgrade and Zagreb, Open Society Fund, and Rothschild Foundation were the donors who supported such events.

Very productive relationships were developed with the University in Rijeka, Croatian authorities (including strong support from the former Croatian President Ivo Josipovic), and several regional centers in SEE.

In short, CAS aims at the following:

• Establishing opportunities for scholars worldwide to gather, discuss and produce high-end and streamlined research on southeast Europe and broader,
• Contributing to a fuller acknowledgment of such scientific products by international academia and scholarly journals,
• Rebuilding and promoting professional collaboration and exchange between internationally renowned research centers and the region’s scientific community,
• Improving the quality of regional research by helping local young scholars to (re)connect to global scholarly trends by providing them with support and infrastructure to conduct research projects (“brain gain” strategy).