The University of Zagreb is part of UNIC, the newly emerging European University of Post-Industrial Cities.

The UNIC alliance aims to enable the creation of a new European university within the framework of the European Education Area. Such a European university will enable a significant increase in student mobility and inclusion and contribute to the creation of a model of inclusive education aimed at tackling the problems of post-industrial cities and an increasingly diverse European society.

In addition to the University of Zagreb, the UNIC alliance consists of the Deusto University of Bilbao (Spain), the Ruhr University in Bochum (Germany), the Koç University in Istanbul (Turkey), the Erasmus University in Rotterdam (Netherlands), the University of Cork (Ireland), the University of Liège (Belgium) and the University of Oul (Finland).

The alliance of eight European universities, including the University of Zagreb, was awarded initial support for the development of the European University of Post-Industrial Cities – UNIC, as part of the European Universities call.

The UNIC project website can be accessed:

— Croatian – unic.eu/hr/

— English – unic.eu/en/

The UNIC coordinator is the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. The coordinator of the project at the level of the University of Zagreb is the Faculty of Law.

The first phase of the project will last for three years, after which it is expected to be extended to three further years. UNIC activities are expected to be fully developed over a six-year period, but the European University of Post-Industrial Cities will remain a permanent institutional form of cooperation between partner universities forming the UNIC Alliance.

The project of creating UNIC has three main components, which will be realised mostly online, i.e. in the digital environment.

The Inter-University Campus (UNIC Campus) will allow students, researchers and university teachers as well as other employees, especially those in student departments, laboratories and libraries, the unhindered mobility necessary for learning, teaching, scientific research, work, exchange and development of knowledge within UNIC, and this regardless of their socioeconomic and cultural origin and condition. The goal is to ensure the full inclusion of all categories of students. A 50% student mobility and a 25 % mobility of teachers and non-teaching staff is expected.

The Superdiversity Academy should encourage all universities from the UNIC alliance to accept students and employees of all characteristics and backgrounds. The goal is to open and develop new forms of cooperation and mobility of students and employees among the participating universities.

CityLabs are a form of learning through practice aimed at enabling intercultural learning and cooperation. By way of illustration, in Zagreb, where the defined topic of the CityLab is “Helping citizens after the earthquake”, the provision of help to people in need, in particular to marginalized groups and at-risk groups, will be made possible at a location outside the faculty. The aim is to enable intercultural learning and collaboration.

The Steering Committee of the project of institutional design of the European University of Post-Industrial Cities at the level of the University of Zagreb is chaired by the Rector Professor Stjepan Lakušić. The project leader is Professor Ivan Koprić and the deputy project manager is Associate Professor Goranka Lalić Novak. The working team of the University of Zagreb consists of several teachers and students of the Faculty of Law, including Associate Professor Goranka Lalić Novak and Associate Professor Mirela Krešić as head of the component of the Inter-University Campus, Assistant Professor Tijana Vukojičić Tomić and Associate Professor Teo Giljević as leaders of the Superdiversity Academy, whereas Professor Nino Žganec and Assistant Professor Ana Opačić lead the component of the city labs. Assistant Professor Teo Giljević is the academic coordinator of the student committee at the University of Zagreb level, which includes students Karlo Kožina and Ivana Josipović as representatives of the Faculty of Law. Petra Đurman, PhD, and Vesna Kotarski, head of the Office for EU Projects of the University of Zagreb, oversee communication and public relations on the project. In addition, the working team of the project includes Assistant Professor Koraljka Modić Stanke, Associate Professor Tereza Rogić Lugarić and Associate Professor Marko Jurić as well as teachers from other components of the University. Teachers and students from all components of the University, as well as the employees of the Rectorate are involved in certain tasks and activities of the project. The information system group is led by Professor Neven Vrček from the Faculty of Organization and Informatics, whereas the University Computing Centre (Srce) and its representative Miroslav Milinović, participate in the implementation of the activities related to the creation of a common information system of the new European University. Along with UNIC project commissioners at all components of the University of Zagreb, the student representatives of all components gathered in the student committee will play an important role. The formation of a project stakeholder committee is also expected, which will include representatives of both the local authorities of the City of Zagreb, civil society and the business community from the area of the City of Zagreb as well as the wider community.

A UNIC project presentation is available in the video of Student TV with the participation of Professor Ivan Koprić at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UlgQzn69As

The Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb is one of the partners of the three-year-project Horizon 2020 Twinning Open Data Operational (TODO 2019-2022), aimed at strengthening the excellence and research capacities of the University of Zagreb in relation to open data research, i.e. research based on open data, as well as to encourage the offer and quality of open data by institutions.

Funded under the Horizon 2020 Widespread research and innovation support programme in the total amount of EUR 799.988 (Grant Agreement Number 857592 – TODO), the implementation period of this three-year project was scheduled from 1 October 2019 to 30 September 2020.

The project aimed at enhancing the interdisciplinary approach and innovation capacity of the University of Zagreb in the use of open data. In addition to the Faculty of Law, five more constituents of the University of Zagreb were included in the project: the Faculty of Geodesy (as the coordinator of the project, and with Professor Dražen Tutić in the first year, and Professor Ana Kuvedžić Divjak in the second two years of project implementation), the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, the Faculty of Organisation and Informatics, the Faculty of Transport Sciences and the Faculty of Agriculture, while the foreign partners of the project, Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) and Aegean University (Greece), are among the world’s most prominent open data research centres.

A total of 39 scientists and associates of partner universities actively participated in the project, whereby valuable research initiatives in the field of open data were launched with the support of both domestic and international experts.

The project team of the Faculty of Law consisted of:

Associate Professor Anamarija Musa, Team Leader

Associate Professor Tereza Rogić

Assistant Professor Tihomir Katulić

Assistant Professor Marko Jurić

Petra Đurman, PhD

In addition to managing the WP4 Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing work package, the project team of the Faculty of Law focused on three project tasks and two additional project results, but also on issues of open data management (legal framework, policy, institutions, stakeholder relations, user protection), fiscal aspects, licenses and personal data as research questions concerning open data as a research resource. In relation to certain types of open data, the research interest was on institutional data, regulations and decisions (legal data), fiscal data.

Please send any inquiries about the project activities to the project team leader by e-mail amusa@prav.hr

More information about the project, the project activities and events can be found on the official TODO website http://todo-project.eu/.

as well as on:

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/todo-euproject/

Twitter https://twitter.com/TodoProject @TodoProject

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TwinningOpenDataOperational/

ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Todo_Project

Academia.edu https://unizg.academia.edu/TwinningOpenDataOperational

Strengthening social cohesion and reducing social inequalities among Europeans are major policy challenges. At the same time, new ideas and initiatives are being put forward by citizens, experts and policymakers. Such initiatives and social innovations often remain unrecognised and are met with obstacles in their transfer to other urban areas. The goal of the project was to study the “missing links” between social innovations at the local levels and their successful transfer and implementation into other environments. Social innovations in selected European cities were studied along with the social policy frameworks within which they appear. The aim of the research was to understand how local social systems help social cohesion. Using quantitative and qualitative research methodology and multiple sources of data, research methods and indicators, three vulnerable groups were studied (the young unemployed, single mothers and immigrants), as well as three areas of social policy: employment, family policy and housing policy.

As a result of the project, the faculty’s capacities were strengthened and its international visibility as partner in this project was enhanced. The faculty’s international network was enlarged and its cooperation with relevant European universities, institutions and particular relevant researchers was improved. As a result of the project, 60 reports about 10 countries and 20 European cities were drawn up, including Zagreb and Varaždin, 77 studies of social innovations were produced, including 7 from Croatia, as well as 4 comparative reports, 3 videos, 3 policy briefs, one e-book, and two books (one of which is being prepared for publication). A book in Croatian based on the research results is also being prepared for publication. Meetings, panels and forums were also organised within the project. The project has had an impact on the promotion of social innovations as a concept in the public, and as a new research phenomenon in Croatia.

The project involved an epidemiological study on child abuse and neglect in 9 countries of Eastern Europe (Greece, as the coordinator, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey). A faculty teacher was the national coordinator for Croatia, and 5 more teachers of the Social Work Study Centre of the faculty took part in the project. The project aimed at studying the prevalence and incidence of child abuse and neglect in representative random samples of students from the general population aged 11, 13 and 16. Data was collected from two sources, i.e. from pairs of children and their parents, using two iCAST questionnaires which were prepared by ISPCAN (International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect) and UNICEF, and modified and culturally adapted for the purposes of the project. In addition to that, cases of abuse and neglect of children of the same ages reported in Croatia were analysed, based on the documentation kept by Social Welfare Centres as the competent institutions for child protection. This data was collected in all the involved countries in the same geographical areas and in the same period as in the epidemiological study. The aim of the project was to incorporate all the obtained results, experience and resource networking into comprehensive reports at the national and international levels, with the final aim of facilitating the creation and implementation of social policy based on evidence, all for the purpose of enhancing the services for the protection of children against abuse and neglect in their families.

As regards the assessment of the quality of work done and the achieved results, it should be noted that, within the project, international instruments for the study of child abuse and neglect were translated into 9 languages and culturally adapted for use in all participant countries. In Croatia, comprehensive data on the incidence of child abuse and neglect were collected and this represents the first such study carried out in the entire country on a nationally representative sample. In addition, this was the first time that documentation on reported cases of child abuse and neglect kept by Centres for Social Care underwent deep analysis. The results of the project have been presented to experts from the system of education and social care, and to the institutions competent for making decisions pertaining to child protection.

The project started from the hypothesis that it was necessary for the Republic of Croatia to continue the reform of civil procedural law for the purpose of its further development and, to the extent necessary and desirable, for its harmonisation with EU law. Special attention was given to topical and relevant issues from the perspective of harmonisation with the legal system: comparative evaluation of the efficiency of the civil justice system; determining the boundaries, possibilities and modes of further dejudicalization of civil justice in terms of transferring certain matters from judicial competence to that of other professions (public notaries, i.e. public enforcement officers); the possibility of expanding auxiliary judicial services, such as the court registrar (Rechtspfleger); the establishment of a scientific basis for further development of alternative dispute resolution methods, primarily arbitration and mediation; the regulation of legal aid in civil matters; the development of cross-border bankruptcy, enforcement titles for undisputed claims, and a final comprehensive legislation of non-contentious proceedings.

Exceptional results were achieved under the project, both with respect to quality and quantity, yielding eight authored books and four textbooks pertaining to important areas of the reform of civil procedural law: the law of litigation, the law of non-contentious proceedings, enforcement and bankruptcy, and arbitration; as well as monographs on family alimony proceedings and certain aspects of legal protection of patients’ rights. Furthermore, nine edited books were also published, pertaining mostly to comparative analyses of the development of procedural law in Europe and Croatia, which ensured significant international visibility of the project and its researchers. Sixty book chapters were published, as well as over fifty articles in domestic and foreign scientific and professional journals.

The project’s basic hypothesis was to verify was that the alignment of the Croatian legal system with European Union law transcends the boundaries of normative adjustment, and that it entails not only the harmonisation of law, but also a change in the national legal culture. The research was directed at answering the question to what extent possible differences in the meaning of legal institutes and legal norms can affect the application of EU law in the national legal order. At the same time, the following scientific inquiries were pursued: what are the main characteristics of legal culture in the EU and in Croatia and how is it formed; to what extent do EU policies affect the interpretation of law in the EU and its member states; who are the main participants in the social and legal discourse which forms the meaning of law and what is their impact; in what areas of regulation do the participants who affect the interpretation and application of law have greater impact; how are legal rules of Croatian law formed and what is their meaning in relation to EU law. Special attention was paid to the problem of the interpretative autonomy of judges and its boundaries as they are understood in the Croatian legal system and comparatively in the EU. The question of the extent to which individual understanding of the contents of subjective rights in the European legal context can affect, through interpretative activity of judges, the formation of the meaning of objective law, both national and European, was also researched. These issues were researched in the fields of free market, social policy including gender equality policy, fundamental human rights, relationships between principal regulatory institutions, and the activity of the judicial branch.

The high quality of work on the project is reflected in the quantity of its results – 6 authored books, 5 edited books, 53 book chapters, 3 textbooks and readers, 2 original scientific articles in CC journals, 23 scientific articles in other journals, etc. Four doctoral dissertations were defended within the Project. Another result of the project is the analysis of the relationship between national law and EU law, impact of European policies on the creation and application of EU law, legal and political effects of membership with a reference to the importance of differentiating between pre-accession and post-accession periods. Scientific insights that the Project yielded are places in the context of Croatian and European legal culture and identity and presented in a manner that emphases the interaction of the processes of creation and application of law and the development of national and supranational (European) legal culture. Areas in which there has been a convergence of legal rules, legal institutes and legal culture have been identified, as have the periods in the process of accession to the EU in which the convergence occurred.

The project researched the alignment of Croatian civil law regulation with EU law and the ways in which such alignment was achieved. The project included the areas of property law, law of obligations, intellectual property law, and inheritance law, and within these areas certain particular legal disciplines were covered, such as European private law, consumer protection law, legal regulation of real property, legal regulation of cultural goods, producer liability for faulty products, and the law of e-commerce.

The high quality of work on the project is reflected in the quantity of the publications published within the project, among which are 6 authored books, 71 book chapters, 3 textbooks and readers, 24 articles, and 9 other publications. Approximately twenty publications were published by reputable foreign publishers. The project results were presented at 53 scientific and professional conferences. These results were also applied in Croatia’s EU pre-accession negotiations, as a number of the project team members were part of the negotiating teams. Furthermore, these results were also made available to other interested parties and were used in the drafting of laws transposing EU law into Croatian law. Two doctoral dissertations were defended within the project.

Based on the Lisbon Strategy, the European Union has developed the European social model as a key factor of competitiveness and, consequently, social and economic growth. The project introduces insights into the main characteristics of the high standards of regulation of labour relations and social security accepted in the EU into the Croatian context, particularly as regards the application of the concept of flexicurity. In the period of accession to the EU and in the circumstances of high unemployment, well-developed social systems but difficult to sustain financially, and particularly the problems of burdened pension and health insurance systems and the lack of readiness of public administration for new tasks, the aim was to identify and draw attention to the shortcomings of a rigidly regulated labour market and the social, economic and legal problems of the current regulation of labour relations and social security.

The focus of the project was not on the theoretical basis of the regulation of labour relations and social security in the European context, but rather on research into concrete legal problems relating to the accession to the EU. The areas researched include anti-discrimination, free movement of workers, coordination of social security systems, pension and health insurance system, temping, employment through temporary work agencies, regulation of working hours, collective redundancies, and the legal position of civil servants. All these issues were analysed in the context of the protection of fundamental human rights and the promotion of social dialogue between trade unions, employers and the government.

The fundamental hypothesis of this scientific project is that the Europeanization of public administration and its modernising effects can significantly expedite a sustainable economic and social development of a country, while the effects are also determined by elements of national identity, which itself goes through changes during the Europeanization process. A theoretical model was constructed, analysed and empirically tested for the research into the effects of European integration on the development and legal regulation of Croatian public administration, and the effects of Europeanised public administration on the development of the country. Europeanization affects public administration, local and regional self-government, public services, the system of protection of citizens’ rights, and administrative education. The theoretical model places a special emphasis on the theory of Europeanization and the concept of the European administrative area. The project combined theoretical, empirical and legal research and analyses.

The project attained exceptional high-quality results. Strong cooperation was established with the international scientific community, and with domestic and European administrative practice. The project facilitated connections with a large number (11) of international projects in which members of the Project team were involved. This, in turn, provided deeper insights into certain aspects of the Europeanization of Croatian public administration. The results of the project were presented publicly at several international and domestic scientific events, and a large number of scientific books and articles (20 books, 11 edited books, 70 book chapters, 86 articles) were published, of which a significant number was published in English, bringing international visibility to the research results. A large collection of articles was published in Croatia, and about a dozen team members obtained their doctoral degrees based on research done within the framework of the project.

This scientific project presents the first comprehensive study of the design and efficiency of the social policy system in Croatia. The project’s starting general hypothesis was that intensive social changes, particularly in the Croatian context of transition, influence the weakening of social security, the transformation of the model of the social welfare state present to date, and the development of a combined model of social policy. Considering this hypothesis, the idea of the project was that it is possible and necessary to measure social welfare and social security of citizens based on selected and analysed social indicators. The project’s focus, therefore, focused on the analysis of qualitative and quantitative changes of particular social systems and the drawing up of indicators for the analysis of their efficiency, and the impact of reforms of the social security systems on social cohesion.

The significance of the project is reflected in the fact that this was the first comprehensive analysis of the social systems of the Republic of Croatia, which had never before been analysed in this manner. The value of the project is reflected in its numerous results. The research team published a book entitled “Social Policy of Croatia”, which is the first study of this kind in Croatia. A large number of pioneering analyses, such as analyses of the benefit payments system, family, retirement and housing policy, where system development is measured by quantitative indicators. Apart from one edited and two authored books, 43 articles were published in journals, of which 12 CC articles (three journals are Q1 journals of various categories), and 12 book chapters by reputable foreign publishers. Three research assistants hired on the project defended their doctoral dissertations, of which two abroad, at the University of Indiana (USA) and the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia).

The Project aimed to discover where and within what period Faculty of Law graduates found employment and gain an insight into their perception of knowledge and skills acquired during their study at the faculty in relation to their subsequent employment prospects. The research was carried out by way of an online survey on the careers and employability of the persons who graduated between 2004 and 2010. The study included 1,555 law graduates (48.6% of graduates from that period) and 474 social work graduates (74.6%), which are considered to be adequate response rates for this type of research. The study provided valuable insights into the dynamics of the early careers of the studied populations, their jobs and workplace characteristics, needs for specific knowledge or skills, and their further educational needs, i.e. ambitions for further training.

The research was successfully completed. This was the first time that the faculty, in fact any faculty in Croatia, carried out a detailed study into the employability of its former students, which represents crucial information for curriculum development, and the possibilities for the development of appropriate learning content and drawing up guidelines for the promotion of the faculty to future students. Furthermore, appropriate and sustainable research methodology was developed which facilitates this kind of research at other University faculties and at other universities. The methodology is based on an adapted measuring instrument (the world-renowned REFLEX/HEGESCO questionnaire was translated into Croatian and adapted to suit the needs of research into the employability of lawyers and social workers and tested in a pilot-study), a worked-out procedure for contacting participants, and a survey posted on the LimeSurvey system, making it available to others who wish to conduct the same type of research.

It is generally considered that judicial cooperation in criminal matters is of the utmost importance for the smooth functioning of the European area of freedom, security and justice without internal borders. In the European Union, this goal was sought to be achieved, among other things, by the adoption of normative acts based on the principle of mutual recognition of judgments and judicial decisions. The key instrument that applied this principle to the collection and transfer of evidence in criminal matters is Directive 2014/41/EU regarding the European Investigation Order in Criminal Matters. However, there are many theoretical and practical questions that have arisen with the adoption of the new Directive. For this reason, seven university and scientific institutions, including the Faculty of Law of the University of Zagreb, joined together to collaborate in a project called the European Investigation Order – Legal Analysis and Practical Dilemmas of International Cooperation – EIO-LAPD.

The research team from the Faculty of Law of the University of Zagreb consists of:

Professor Elizabeta Ivičević Karas
Assisstant Professor Marin Bonačić
Assistant Professor Zoran Burić
Assisstant Professor Alexandar Maršavelski

Foreign university and scientific institutions participating in the project include the following:

• The Faculty of Law, University of Maribor (project coordinator)
• The “Jožef Štefan” Institute, Ljubljana (project partner)
• The University of Portucalense, Porto (project partner)
• The “Georg -August” Institute of Criminal Law and Justice of the University of Göttingen (project partner)
• The Faculty of Law, University of Graz (project partner)
• The University of Turin (project partner)

More information about the project is available on the website: https://eio-lapd.eu

More information about the project is available on the website https://croinop.pravo.unizg.hr/

The Balkan Criminology project was launched in 2013 as a pioneering venture of Associate Professor Anna-Maria Getoš Kalac in establishing a criminological centre for researchers focused on organized crime present in Southeast Europe and the Balkans.

Through 6 years of successful activity, which saw, among other things, the organization of 5 own conferences, 15 panels at ESC conferences, as well as 5 weekly educational courses, the Balkan Criminology project developed into a globally recognized partner in the fight against organized crime.

The project was successfully completed in 2019, and it is an excellent example of successful international cooperation between the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb and the Max Planck Institute in Freiburg, as well as numerous university and scientific institutions in other countries of Eastern Europe.

Despite the official end of the project, Balkan Criminology, under the leadership of Associate Professor Getoš Kalac continues its activities with the generous support of the Global Initiative organization.

More information about the previous, current and future work of the research team created through the Balkan Criminology project is available here.

Created under the project “Croatian Violence Monitor” (CroViMo), the Croatian Violence Lab is the first project in Southeast Europe which attempts to break out of the existing default framework of violence, as determined by criminal legislation, and tries to establish an authentic classification of violence with the joint cooperation between theory and practice, as well as various disciplines.

With the support of the Faculty of Law of the University of Zagreb, this project was co-financed with funds from the Croatian Science Foundation.

The aim of the project is to research violence and study the phenomenology, aetiology and prosecution of delinquent violence with a focus on the protection of particularly vulnerable groups of victims (children, the elderly, LGBTQ).

Consequently, the results of the project should provide an answer to the question of the definition of violence, the key parameters that determine the quality and quantity of violence, the possibilities of measuring violence, and to possibly enable the adjustment of, and amendments to, the existing legislative framework and the relevant case law.

In order to achieve the stated goal, under the leadership of Associate Professor Anna-Maria Getoš Kalac, 4 CroViMo laboratories were established; one central laboratory in Zagreb, and three regional laboratories at the Universities of Osijek, Split and Rijeka.

The project’s feasibility and applicability is guaranteed by the strong commitment of expert practitioners as associates and the planned close cooperation with renowned domestic and international scientists from this field in all phases of the CroViMo project.

More information about the work of the project team is available here.

Information about the project can be found on the website of the Legal Clinic

Project summary

Effective systems of education and professional training are the cornerstone of fair, open and democratic societies and sustainable growth and employment. Higher education has a unique role in this regard. In Germany, as in other countries, there are ongoing debates whether education and teaching, especially in the field of legal studies, keep up the pace with present times. Students mostly prepare for their future professional life in a very traditional way. However, new needs have emerged in the labour market. Much more than in the past it is necessary to concentrate on the acquisition of skills. The reasons for this are, for example, the globalization of the legal profession, digitization and the related price reductions, etc. The working environment of lawyers will also experience changes in the coming years, starting with an increasing number of requests, the automation of procedures to complex cross-border cases involving multiple jurisdictions. All these changes in the traditional labour market seek for the adjustment of education as students will not be able to cope with such challenges they have not been faced with in their legal education. Therefore, legal education requires a new way of thinking that, in addition to innovative research, will deal with new interdisciplinary topics and the improvement of transversal (soft skills) skills. The strategic partnership of several European universities is not only focused on the development of basic skills, but in particular on the training of students’ cross-sectoral competences. For this reason, the project is dedicated to the modernization of legal education. As part of the project, the development of innovative approaches and methods and their implementation within the project is expected.

Project duration: 1 September 2020 – 31 August 2023.

Source of funding: Erasmus + Strategic Partnership (European Commission)

Strategic partners:

• The Saarland University (holder)
• The University of Belgrade (Serbia)
• The University of Cadiz (Spain)
• The University of Groningen (Netherlands)
• The Mykolo University Romerio (Lithuania)
• The Regents University (UK)
• The University of Skopje (North Macedonia)
• The University of Zagreb (Professor Alan Uzelac , Assistant Professor Barbara Preložnjak, Assistant Professor Ivana Kanceljak, Juraj Brozović, PhD)
• SEELS

More information is available on: https://mele-erasmus.eu/