Sociological aspects of sustainable sociospatial and manpower development of Slovenia in Europe

Code:

P5-0181

Period:

1.1.2020 - 31.12.2025

Range on year:

1.33 FTE | 2020

Head:

izr.prof.dr. Matjaž Uršič

Research activity:

Social sciences

Abstract:

In the next period, the research programme will focus on analysing multi-level and integral sustainability, which includes the development of settlements, mobility, transport policy, migration, tourism, management of natural resources and human resource development. The research activities will be based on a unique tradition of researching spatio-environmental phenomena and human resource development that will yield an excellent combination of experience and knowledge for future research activities. We can divide the main research fields into five parts: (1) Conceptually connecting the environmental and spatial concepts of socio-spatial development with the design of practical applications for strategic planning on various levels of territorial organisation (local, regional, national and supranational). We will draw on sociology’s capability as an inclusive, connective, and analytical scientific discipline to enable different science languages to be ‘translated’ for the purpose of making progress in the cross-disciplinarity of sustainability research. (2) One research field will focus on researching the multi-directionality of communication between the subsystems while ensuring the tensions between the producers, planners, authority structures, and actual users of the space remain at a minimum. We will research the functional limits of including actors in spatial planning for it to still productively improve the quality of spatial interventions. (3) Regarding sustainable urbanism, the goals are mostly connected to formulating a strategy for the first socio-spatial transformation of a sustainable neighbourhood in the CEE region, a region in which no larger sustainable settlements have so far been established. The result will be a tangible sustainable urbanistic strategy that includes innovative social perspectives on sustainable urbanism so as to improve the local inhabitants’ quality of life. (4) The goals of researching the ‘migrations–environment–digital’ junction call for an interconnected analysis of the local and global factors influencing the processes of diversified mobility. We will research the complexity of influences on migration movements (immigration and emigration) in Slovenia in light of EU policies on migrations and asylum that provide the crucial frameworks for integration practices on the local, national and European levels. (5) The goals of human resource development are connected to the area of employability and graduates’ transition to the labour market. We are interested in the developmental dialectic between the concepts of employability and employment, and will thus follow the developmental context of the creation of ‘national modules for following graduate employability’ at home and abroad. In the area of the professionalisation of academic professions, we will research the challenges they face with regard to their institution, the wider institutional environment, and the professional networks.

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