Osijek Regional Center

Šamačka 9/II
31000 Osijek
Phone: + 385 31 207 294 | + 385 31 207 285
E-mail: miljenko.brekalo@pilar.hr

Miljenko Brekalo, PhD, PhD

1994

The reasons for the establishment of the Pilar Institute regional center in Osijek, as well as other regional centers of the Institute, are based on the general and specific principles of the Institute’s long-term scientific research policy. The fundamental reasons for establishing the Regional Center Osijek are based on a lasting interest in the Croatian East, not only in the Danubian orientation of Croatia, but also in the specificities and peculiarities of the climate of the Croatian Plain, especially in the research of the identity of Osijek and Slavonia, as well as the neighborhood. By considering programs, topics and projects of a global, national and local-regional nature, the regional center should affirm itself as a scientific and intellectual center of the city of Osijek, Osijek-Baranja County and the Croatian East (in close cooperation with the center in Vukovar), which would serve to train young scientists from the local community, but would also provide scientific-research, archival-documentation, publishing, consulting and educational services to the wider academic, management and economic community.

The Osijek Center should thus train young researchers and scientists who will enable the local city and county community to obtain all the relevant indicators necessary for the effective management of the city or county in a timely manner. In addition, the Center’s employees will be able to participate in teaching at the Josip Juraj Strossmayer University in Osijek and  contribute to the quality of university teaching.

The project “Exiled Croatia” was implemented within the framework of the Centre, the results of which were published in “Društvena istraživanja” 28/29 (1997). During 1999/2000. the Centre participated in the migration project (Das Migrationsprojekt) of the Faculty of Economics in Osijek and the Fachhochschule für Wirtschaft in Friedberg and Giessen. The first results were published in the collection Makro-, Mikro- und Rechtliche Aspekte in Transitionsprozessen (Osijek, 2000).

• Miljenko Brekalo, PhD, PhD, scientific advisor with tenure
• Ana-Marija Ćorić, assistant
• Marina Kotrla Topić, PhD, senior research associate

The work program of the Pilar Institute regional center in Osijek is aligned with the fundamental goal of the Institute’s network structure – that in addition to regular scientific research activities, each center also develops activities that will direct thematic centers towards the national and global, and not just regional, levels of activity. This means that the Osijek Center will direct its activities at the national and global levels towards research into Central European history, culture and the future in contemporary European integration, and at the regional level towards topics related to the Croatian Plain, the identity of Slavonia and the Croatian minority. The work program of the regional center in Osijek is based on the design and implementation of the Institute’s basic activities. These are: scientific research work, publishing activities, popularization of science activities, market projects and teaching activities.

The primary and most important activity of the regional center is scientific research on global, national and local-regional topics. In this sense, programs and projects of permanent scientific research activity, financed by the relevant ministry, have a dominant significance. All employeees will cooperate on these projects. In the long term, depending on the available human resources, the regional center would become the holder of one or two projects of permanent scientific research activity. In addition to original scientific research, the regional center will organize, collect and preserve diverse historical material, statistical-demographic documentation and other sources on the identity of Osijek and Slavonia, as well as on all other aspects of the social, demographic, political, historical, cultural and economic development of the Croatian East and Croatian minorities in Slavonia. In this context, the regional center will cooperate closely, in particular, with the Josip Juraj Strossmayer University in Osijek, the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Osijek, the State Archives in Osijek and the Historical Department of the Museum of Slavonia, as well as with all other interested institutions and individuals in the city of Osijek, Osijek-Baranja County, the Republic of Croatia and neighboring countries.

• Personality traits, natural language and cognitive development (194-1941558-1530), leaders Boris Mlačić, PhD (2007 – 2013) – Marina Kotrla Topić, PhD
• COST action IS1404 “Evolution of Reading in the Age of Digitalization (E-READ)” – Marina Kotrla Topić, PhD

• Development Perspectives of the Rural World of Slavonia and Baranja (ed. Maja Štambuk and Antun Šundalić), Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences, Zagreb, 2003.