Members
Tanja Jakobi
Tanja Jakobi is the executive director of the Public Policy Research Center. She joined the CENTER in 2010 as a researcher and media expert, and assumed the role of the executive director in 2016. Her research interests are focused on labour markets, discrimination at work and precarisation. She has been writing about living standard in transitional economies, precarisation and collective organising in the media, poverty alleviation, education and access to labour markets of vulnerable groups. As a researcher she is currently focused on impact on new technologies on the labour market, labour contacts and unionization. She is a member of the Sector Skills Council for the social sciences, journalism, and information, an expert and consulting body that advises the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia on the needs for qualifications on the Republic of Serbia labour market.
Apart from beeing executive director, Tanja writes on digital economy and online platform work. She co-created the GigmeterTM, the first instrument for assessing the socio-economic status of digital workers (men and women) from Serbia, and co-edits its Serbian and regional editions.
She holds MAs in business journalism and philosophy from the Baruch College (US) and BA in philosophy from the University of Belgrade (Serbia).
Maja Kovač
Dr Maja Kovač is a social scientist working in the fields of labour markets and social capital. She has been the Center’s Head Methodologist and Scientific Advisor since 2015. She manages the design of research processes and leads the Center’s research projects related to social capital. Before joining the Center, Maja worked with numerous research organisations, international organisations, and civil society organisations as researcher, consultant, and programme manager. Her interests focus on re-examining the concepts of social and human capital in a variety of contextual environments, with emphasis on semi-periphery countries, and their linkages with labour, education, and future skills.
Maja holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Central Lancashire, UK, an MA in Economics from Pierre Mendès France University (Grenoble II), France, and a BA from the Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade, Serbia.
Vladan Ivanović
Vladan Ivanović joined the Center in 2018. Vladan is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Kragujevac, Serbia, where he teaches Comparative Economic Systems, Public Sector Economics, Institutional Economics, Public Policy Analysis, and Market Regulation Theories. He has authored or co-authored over 30 academic papers in the fields of institutional economics, knowledge-based economy, economic policy, economic transformation, and European integration. Since 2019 he is a member of academic advisory board of IPG Group, where he covers activities regarding strategic corporate development, digitalisation, and market development in the South East European and DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) regions. Vladan leads the GigmetarTM team of analysts.
Vladan graduated from the Faculty of Economics, University of Kragujevac, as the highest-ranking student in his class (2005); he received his MPhil degree (2009) and PhD (2014) from the same institution. He also holds a PhD from the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany (2018). During the course of his studies he did research, made study visits, and took part in programmes and seminars at various universities in the US and Europe.
Zoran Kalinić
Zoran Kalinić has been working with the Center since 2019 as a Researcher-Analyst. Zoran is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Kragujevac, Serbia, where he teaches E-Business, E-Commerce, and E-Government. Zoran’s areas of interest include information technology and systems and their application to society and business, e-business, e-commerce, and the uses of artificial intelligence technologies in business and management. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 papers in international and Serbian journals, and has participated in many international and Serbian scientific and professional projects. In the GigmetarTM Zoran is responsible for data processing, analysis, and data presentation.
Slobodan Golušin
Slobodan Golušin is a PhD candidate in sociology at the Central European University in Vienna and a research associate at the Public Policy Research Center. His research interests revolve around geography and political economy of outsourcing of labor through digital platforms. He is also interested in data science and quantitative methodology in social science. Slobodan is an associate of the Public Policy Research Center since July 2020.
Slobodan obtained an MA degree in sociology at the Central European University and MA and BA degrees in psychology at the University of Novi Sad. He also studied at the University of Oslo and ISCTE IUL in Lisbon.
Srđan Korać
Srđan Korać joined the Public Policy Research Centre in 2017. Korać is Research Fellow at the Institute of International Politics and Economics (IIPE), Belgrade, where his main areas of academic interest include international security, ethics in international relations, the political system of the European Union, and Serbiaʼs accession to the EU. His research has been focused for a decade and more on anti-corruption and anti-organised crime methodology and policy, and the ethical dimension of the public administration reform in Serbia. He is the Deputy Editor of IIPEʼs journal International Problems, and a member of Editorial Board of two academic periodicals – Administracija i javne politike (published by Institute for Political Studies, Belgrade), and Human Security (Faculty of Security Studies, University of Belgrade).
Srđan holds his PhD in Public Administration Ethics at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade, where he had earned his MA degree in European Studies, and had graduated from the Department of International Relations. ?
Manja Bogićević
Manja Bogićević has been working with the Center as Big Data Scientist since May 2019. Manja was one of the first women entrepreneurs and data scientists in the Balkans. She helps managers and entrepreneurs to implement data science in their businesses and increase profits by applying machine learning.
On the GigmetarTM team, Manja is tasked with web scraping and data processing.
She is the co-founder and Chief AI Officer of Kageera and President of the Machine Learning Serbia Association. She obtained her BA in Finance, Banking, and Insurance from the Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade, Serbia, and completed a mini-MBA course (Leader Project) at the Ivey Business School, Canada. Manja is currently attending a MicroMasters programme in Data Science and Statistics from the MIT, Boston, US.
Filip Stojanović
Filip Stojanovic is a member of the CENTRE since late 2016. He earned an MA from the Faculty of Security Studies of the University of Belgrade in 2016. He successfully defended the thesis entitled "The Conceptualization of National Interest in Security Studies." He graduated from the same faculty. Filip was engaged on the following CENTRE's projects: Addressing Firearms Misuse and its Impact on Gender-based Violence through Civic Action and Policy Advocacy (2016/2017), Local Security and Role of MPs, (2017.) Read more…
Iva Tomić
Iva Tomic has been a member of the Center since September 2018, first as an Intern and later as a Research Associate and Coordinator within the program "Migration and Development" of the German Organization for International Cooperation (GIZ). Iva designs and runs promotional campaigns for Center’s publications and research activities. She was also on the organizing committee for Center's National Conference on the Future of Work in 2018 and 2019, as well as on the team that organized the first regional conference on platform economy and online work in Southeastern Europe. Iva contributes to the Center’s research activities by conducting focus groups and interviews, as well as working on data collection and preliminary analysis.
Iva completed her undergraduate studies at Bard College Berlin (formerly the European College of Liberal Arts), where she earned a BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, with a double major in Ethics and Politics, and Art and Aesthetics.
Sonja Lundin
Sonja Lundin is an artist who joined the Center in the summer of 2019 and is tasked with developing the organisation’s visual identity. She is currently enrolled in an Undergraduate degree in Printmaking at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Belgrade, class of 2021.
In the GigmetarTM team, Sonja is responsible for the visual identity of the instrument and its presence on social networks and other media.
Sonja has both participated in solo as well as group exhibitions, and works with mediums including installations, prints, sculptures, paintings, and digital media. She has a wealth of experience in managing social media and designing communications materials for a variety of organisations.
Ljubivoje Radonjić
Ljubivoje Radonjić has been working with the Center since 2019. Ljubivoje is a GigmetarTM data analyst. His key areas of interest are economic innovations, digital economy, institutional economics, and growth and development economics. He is proficient in Stata and Eviews software for econometric testing.
He has authored or co-authored several academic papers in the fields of political economy, regional politics, and economic growth, and has participated in a number of national and international conferences.
Ljuba is a doctoral student of Macroeconomics at the Faculty of Economics, University of Kragujevac, Serbia, where he has been working as a Trainee Researcher since 2019. He is currently doing research for his doctoral thesis at the Cracow University of Economics, Poland.
Svetlana Djukic
Svetlana Djukic joined the CENTER’s team in September 2019 where she serves as a leader of the arts experience. She started her professional career with the Open Society Foundation in Serbia and has worked with the civil society, cultural actors and independent media scene during a particularly important period of the Foundation’s work that considerably contributed to the democratic change in 2000 in Serbia.
As the Programme manager in the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia, she provided leadership in key reforms in the media and civil society sectors, engaging in monitoring and advocacy of negotiations with the EU and managed multimillion program assistance program for civil society, media and culture.
Svetlana graduated from the Faculty of Philology, Department for Spanish Language and Literature and holds European Diploma in Cultural Project Management. In 1995 she designed the “AlterImage” Festival, a presentation of the alternative arts and culture scene of the 1990s in Serbia, showcasing the country’s engaged artistic scene.
Marina Tadić
Marina Tadic holds Master's Degree in International Security from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, where she obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations. She is engaged as a researcher at the CENTRE from February 2013 5.
She participated in several projects of the Centre, primarily those related to security policies and human security. Within the project Youth’s Local Security Issues and Democratic Control of Security Sector she conducted focus groups and workshops for high school students and local youth activist on the topics of human security and security sector oversight. She co-authored the Centre’s studies Mapping Non-Discrimination Discourse in Military Education in the Republic of Serbia and Roma Women and Men and Security Sector Reform in the Republic of Serbia. Additionally, she was an associate on the analysis Targeting Weapons and an author of the short analysis PROS & CONS of the Military Chaplaincy in the Serbian Armed Forces.
Marina was a participant in numerous courses and seminars concerning security policies, among which is a course on multinational operations organized by the Serbian Armed Forces’ Peacekeeping Operations Center. Likewise, she participated in the National Democratic Institute’s programs for young leaders “Youth Leadership Academy” and “Young Leaders of Serbia”. Marina was among the best socially active students who were selected to participate in the “Welcome to Germany” program conducted by the European Movement in Serbia, and among the participants of the mentoring program “Share Your Knowledge, Become a Mentor”, organized by the European Movement in Serbia as well. She served as an intern at the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, as well as a volunteer at the Public Office of the President of the Republic of Serbia. Read more
Milan Lukic
Milan Lukic, is a researcher and contributor to the website of the Centre and worked on the project Security issues within Serbian 2016 election campaign (2016). In 2012 and 2013 he collaborated on the development of the site of the Centre.
He has 25+ years of experience as a journalist and radio presenter. From 1991 to 2010 he had worked as a journalist and presenter on the Radio B92 and was administrator of the blog of this media company, from 2010 to April 2015, he was a journalist in the business magazine, Business and Finance ". Today he works as an editor and webmaster for several websites. He studied at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, finished BBC journalism graduate, worked as a UN translator and copywriter.
Former Members of the CENTRE
Jelena Sapic was CENTAR’s associate from November 2015 to July 2019. She graduated from the Central European University in 2014 with a Master of Arts in International Relations and European Studies. Her master’s thesis was entitled “Evolution of the Economic Order in the Western Balkans: Foreign Direct Investments as the engine of (under)development” and it was supervised by Professor Friedrich Kratochwil. She completed her undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade, majoring in international relations.
Jelena attended many extracurricular activities including a year-long course at the Department for advanced undergraduate students of the Belgrade Open School and the Summer School on Terrorism and Counterterrorism held in Olympia (Greece) where she was one of the youngest participants. She also participated in the 2013 TRAIN Program (Think Tanks Providing Research and Advice through Interaction and Networking) organized by the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). During TRAIN, she conducted a research project which aimed to explore the impacts of the Brussels agreements on bilateral trade and freedom of movement between Kosovo and Serbia. Findings and recommendations were presented to stakeholders in Brussels. Jelena worked in the Institute for Economic Territorial Development and volunteered in NGOs in Kragujevac. She is particularly interested in social-economic inequalities, transitional processes in the Western Balkans, education, and migration.
Milica Skocajic, joined CENTER in February 2018 as a junior researcher, after a successful internship during 2017. As an intern, she participated in the implementation of the LOVE (Law, Order, Values) to migrants/asylum seekers/persons granted asylum in enjoying rights without discrimination research project, assisting CENTER’s researchers in analyzing local communities’ capacities to handle challenges associated with the refugee crisis. In 2018, she will be engaged as a team member of the CENTER on the project - "Digging into Digital Work in Serbia: Who are crowdworkers from Serbia and why they work on global digital platforms?"
She has completed her master studies at the Department of Psychology, at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade with the thesis: Psychosocial aspects of abortion – analysis of abortion as a personal experience. She graduated beforehand at the same department.
Jelena Radoman is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade and a researcher at the Public Policy Research Centre. She is the author of number of papers on security sector reform, Russian foreign and internal policy, and energy security. Ms. Radoman worked as a consultant on various projects in the field of security and related issues.
She is an associate of the CENTRE since 2011. She has been in charge of preparing and conducting researches on security of vulnerable groups and security sector reform in Serbia. As a CENTRE's team member, she carried out the research projects regarding the security of LGBTIQ community as well as security of Roma in Serbia. She co-authored Mapping Non-Discrimination Discourse in Military Education in the Republic of Serbia.
Ms. Radoman was awarded with OSI-Chevening Scholarship for Master studies of Politics, Security and Integration at the School of Slavic and East European Studies, University College London and received her Master degree in 2008. Also, she was awarded scholarship from the European Fund for the Balkans and OSCE Mission in Serbia. She was a visiting researcher at the Hellenic Institute for International Relations in Athens.
Marko Milanović is a researcher who is primarily interested in social protection and youth policies. His main expertise is related to the application of quantitative and qualitative methods in the field of social protection, especially focusing on persons with disabilities, human trafficking victims, and children without biological families. Concerning youth policies, he was engaged in evaluating youth office performance, peers’ education, mediation and coaching. Also, he was involved in preparing plans on integrity (in particular judicial), projects based on PISA research, and socially responsible business. He is the author of numerous articles published in domestic and international journals.
Marko Milanović was engaged on CENTRE’s projects National HDR: Social Capital and Resilience of Municipalities, Research on Family Life-Satisfaction in Serbia: Happiness of families with children and Prevention, Protection and Integration of the Human Trafficking Victims in Serbia.
Jelena Bjelica is an independent researcher and journalist. She was working with UNDP on small arms control in Kosovo 2009 to 2010 and with UNODC in Afghanistan 2010 to 2014. Her recent publications include: Networks of Regressive Globalization and Challenges to International Assistance Report: Case Study Afghanistan, Bojicic-Dzelilovic V. and Kostovicova D. (Eds), London School of Economics and Political Science (2012); Human Trafficking and National Security in Serbia, in Migrations and Media, Moore, K., Gross, B. Threadgold, T. (eds.), Peter Lang Publishing Group (2012); Briefing Paper on 2009 Annual Program for Kosovo (under UNSCR 1244/99) under the Instrument of Pre-Accession in the context of the 2009 ‘enlargement package; European Parliament, Brussels (2010).
As a CENTRE's member Jelena published public policy brief Arms Trade and Human Rights: A New Paradigm?
Lenka Petrović was a CENTRE's junior researcher working on the project “The impact of socio-economic structure of rural population to the success of rural development policy” which CENTRE implemented within the Regional Research Promotion Program in the Western Balkans (RRPP). Lenka is an agricultural engineer for agroeconomics. Her working experience includes engagements as an assistant adviser in Agricultural and Advisory Expert Service Kruševac and as an associate with the Serbian Association of Agricultural Economists on the project “Development strategy of agricultural cooperatives in Serbia”. She graduated from Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade, with average grade 9.17, and she was awarded the scholarship of Republic of Serbia. Additionally, she was awarded scholarships from the Fund for the promotion of young talents of Kruševac, and Zemun municipality. Currently, she is a master student at the same faculty. She attended training for Business planning and production of business plan organized by CEFE and USAID.
Lenka had been engaged as a specialist in the CENTRE's project Formal and informal networks in rural areas
Ivona Lađevac is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade, from where she previously earned her M.Sc. degree with thesis International Legal Status of the European Union, and had graduated from the Department of International Relations. She also completed specialization in European Studies as well as seminars Strengthening the Capacities of the Serbian Administration for European Accession, Working Migration in the Western Balkans, and on the writing project proposals for FP7. Since 2001, Ivona is a research associate at the Institute of International Politics and Economics. Main areas of her academic interest include EU law and international relations. During the 2010 she was a co-coordinator of the IPA project “Debating Serbia’s European Future: the Voice of Civil Society in Decision-Making”. She is the author of numerous articles, co-author of one monograph book and editor of several proceedings.
Darko Stalevski is an international consultant with over 15 years of experience in project development, financing and implementation. He worked as project manager for international organizations and institutions such as United Nations Development Program, Delegation of the European commission, Children’s Villages and ADRA International, but also for corporate sector (The Coca Cola Company & Hyatt), and number of local NGOs. He led multinational teams of up to 50 professionals and more than 500 volunteers in implementation of wide range of projects: Economic development; Disaster management and assistance to flood victims; Emergency relief for Syrian refugees; Environment protection; Municipal infrastructure development.
As an experienced negotiator, mediator and facilitator, he was often in a position of a key communication point between central government, private sector, and international institutions regarding project programming and implementation. During the EU MISP he coordinated a large group of donors and stakeholders including representatives of World Bank, European Investment Bank, Council of Europe, EC Delegation and seven ministries from Serbian central government, helping them in their efforts to enhance development of infrastructure projects in Serbia.
Marija Stankovic was a 2015 Roma Fellow in CENTRE which was selected among think-tanks and NGOs from Serbia and Macedonia, as a host organization of ‘’Roma Placement Program.” The program was launched by Central-European University (CEU) from Budapest and financed by National Endowment for Democracy (NED). As a junior fellow, Marija was engaged in providing program support and research assistance within CENTRE. Marija graduated from the Faculty of Sciences in Novi Sad, and she gained experience as intern in the Delegation of European Union in Serbia and in the Office for Cooperation with Civil Society of the Republic of Serbia. She commenced her career in leading NGO’s in Serbia.
