Dr. Zlatko Šabič is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chair of International Relations, and a senior researcher at the Centre of International Relations at the same faculty. He is the Director-General of the East Asia Resource Library (EARL). He is a member of the Faculty of Social Sciences Governing Board, and a member of the Habilitation Commission of the University of Ljubljana. He is the academic co-ordinator of the PhD programme in International Relations. He is a member of the Strategic Council of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia. He served in the Strategic Council under several Ministers of Foreign Affairs before. He also lectures at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Internationally, Prof. Šabič is a directly elected member of the Governing Council of the International Studies Association (2021–2023), a community of more than 7,000 academics and experts in international relations worldwide. He is one of the founding members of the Central and East European International Studies Association and of the European International Studies Association.
At the Faculty of Social Sciences, Prof. Šabič teaches undergraduate courses on International Relations, International Organisations with Practicum, International Protection of Environment, Current Issues in the International Community, and the graduate course on Global Governance. Several students have received awards for their academic works under his supervision: the faculty award for the best BA thesis (four students awarded); Slovenian UN Association award of excellence for the diploma work (eight students); one student has received the Award for the best PhD Thesis at the Faculty of Social Sciences; the Governmental Office for Information Award for the best BA Thesis in the field of European Affairs (two students); and the Academic Peter Klinar Award for the Best BA Thesis (one student).
Prof. Šabič studied, taught or researched at the Universities of Graz (1993), Bergen (1996), Salzburg (2002–2003), at Brown University, the Watson Institute for International Studies, and the University of Passau (2020). He was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. (2006). He was a lecturer within the Joint European Master in Comparative Local Development (CoDe) in which he held classes at the University of Trento (2009), the University of Regensburg (2010), and the Corvinus University, Budapest (2011). At the International Center for Promotion of Enterprises (an international organization headquartered in Ljubljana, Slovenia) he taught a course on Regional International Organisations (2010-2011).) He held lectures for the Vanjsko politička inicijativa BiH (2011–2013). He has taught a course on International Organisations at the Diplomatic Academy of Armenia for several years.
At the Faculty of Social Sciences, Prof. Šabič was a Vice-Dean for Student Affairs (2003–2005) and a Vice-Dean for International Co-operation (2015–2017). He was the Head of the Chair of International Relations (2003–2005), and of the Department of Political Science (2009–2011). He was an elected member of the Faculty’s Senate (2001–2003, 2003–2005, 2019–2021). He was a Member of the Governing Board of the Faculty of Social Sciences (2009–2011), and a Member of the Second Bologna Reform Task Force at the Faculty of Social Sciences (2013–2015).
At the national level, Prof. Šabič was a member of the Standing Working Group for Social Sciences in the Scientific Council of the Slovenian Research Agency (2010–2015).
Internationally, Prof. Šabič was an Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Relations and Development (1998–2003), indexed as one of the most influential professional journals in the field of International Relations. He was the elected President of the Central and East European International Studies Association (CEEISA – 2003–2006). He was the Director of Young Researchers Workshops at the European International Studies Association (2013–2015). He was the co-editor of the CEEISA-Palgrave Book Series on Central and East European Perspectives on International Relations (with Petr Drulák) (2013–2019). He is or has been a member of several editorial boards of leading journals in international relations, including the European Journal of International Relations, International Studies Quarterly and Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen.
He has served to the international scientific community in several other capacities as well. He was the Programme Chair of CEEISA conferences in Prague (1999) and Warsaw (2000), a Programme Co-chair of the CEEISA-NISA-RISA conference in Moscow in 2002 (with Knud Erik Jørgensen from the Aarhus University), and the Programme Co-chair of the CEEISA-ISA Convention in Budapest in 2003 (with Phillip Hopmann from the Brown University, and Felicia Krishna-Hensel from the Auburn University). He was the Co-organiser and a member of the Organising Board for the conference of the World International Studies Committee in 2008 in Ljubljana. The conference brought together 1,107 scholars from 70 countries. In Slovenia, he actively assists students in the organisation of international events, such as the international summer school Academia Aestiva Internationalis.
Prof. Šabič has participated in, won and/or co-ordinated several research projects. They have focused, among others, on “The Role of Members of Congress in Decision-Making of Transatlantic International Parliamentary Institutions (2006–2008; research in part based on the awarded Fulbright Scholarship); on “Post-Yugoslav Network on the EU” (2014 Jean Monnet Programme); PADEMIA, Erasmus Academic Network on Parliamentary Democracy Network in Europe (2011–2015); and on the “Parliamentary diplomacy of Taiwan in Comparative Perspective” (2015–2021; supported in part by Taiwan Fellowship (2016), and the International Visiting Fellowship of Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (2017)).
His areas of expertise are global governance, international organisations, inter-parliamentary networks and institutions, and international protection of the environment. He has published several books, articles and other contributions on these and related topics. His detailed academic record is available at the openly accessible database (https://cris.cobiss.net/ecris/si/sl). He has frequently commented on international relations for both Slovenian and international media. Internationally, he has been approached e.g. by the International Herald Tribune (now The New York Times International Edition), Al Jazeera Balkans, BBC China, Welt Trends, TRT World, and Radio and Television of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Domestically, he has written for or given interviews to all major printed and electronic media. He was also a columnist for the Slovenian weekly Finance (2017–2020).
Prof. Šabič is the recipient of The Golden Plaque awarded to him by the University of Ljubljana for exceptional contributions to the development of scientific, pedagogical or artistic endeavours, and for strengthening the reputation of the University of Ljubljana (2020).
Languages: Slovenian (mother tongue), English (full professional proficiency), German, Italian and Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian/Montenegrin.