CALL FOR FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS – AT THE REGIONAL NETWORK OF CENTERS FOR ADVANCED STUDIES IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE (RECAS)
The Regional Fellowship encourages researchers to conduct and present their work across key university centers in Southeast Europe, deepening regional exchange and cooperation. Fellows will receive host support at the Universities of Rijeka and Belgrade, and may select co-hosts among partner universities in Skopje, Sarajevo, Ljubljana, Prishtina, Tirana, or Podgorica. This allows researchers to develop comparative perspectives, build networks, and contribute to regionally grounded, globally relevant scholarship.
Each fellow will spend up to six months working on a research project related to this year’s fellowship theme. During their stay, they will engage with local scholarly communities, conduct fieldwork, test methods, and link their findings to concrete societal challenges. The program is especially suited to action-oriented scholars aiming to co-create knowledge, address democratic deficits, or propose viable alternatives for the future of the region.
2025 FELLOWSHIP THEME: YOUTH AGENCY AND NEW POLITICAL IMAGINARIES IN THE WESTERN BALKANS
This year’s fellowship theme invites researchers to explore how young people across Southeast Europe imagine and enact democratic futures amid persistent structural and geopolitical tensions. In a context marked by stalled EU integration, youth disenchantment, state capture, and dual deficits in ecological and digital capacities, young people in the region are not simply passive observers of democratic backsliding—they are active participants in crafting new civic meanings and democratic aspirations.
Rather than viewing youth as a “target group” or a future electorate waiting to be integrated into predefined institutions, we recognize them as producers of political knowledge and agents of democratic and policy innovation. Youth agency is conceptualized not merely as protest or participation, but as the capacity to generate new political imaginaries—collective, affective, and symbolic visions of how politics could be otherwise.
The project foregrounds two interlinked thematic pillars:
- New Political Imaginaries of Youth: How do young people across the region picture Europe’s and regional social and political future? What metaphors, historical references, and cultural narratives do they deploy to articulate their relationship with democratic institutions, identity, and regional affiliation? Fellows are invited to research how these imaginaries inform youth’s sense of belonging, resistance, and possibility.
- Eco-Digital Youth Futures: How do young people engage with the intertwined challenges of ecological crisis and digital transformation? What role do digital tools play in their civic expression or environmental advocacy? What kinds of hybrid “eco-digital imaginaries” emerge from youth discourse and practice?
This theme challenges researchers to think beyond youth as recipients of policy or subjects of demographic concern. It invites them to trace how youth understand and contest the limits of existing political configurations, and how their ideas might inform more inclusive, participatory, and just futures for the region and Europe as a whole.
The fellowship program aims to blend theoretical inquiry, participatory fieldwork, and policy design. Fellows are encouraged to explore how youth-led imaginaries intersect with broader structural constraints and challenges: digitalization and digital exclusion, green transition and environmental injustice, democratic resilience and weak institutions, and shifting geopolitical alignments.
By embedding research in student-led workshops, regional collaborations, and policy co-creation, the fellowship offers a unique opportunity to contribute to democratic renewal not by proposing abstract reforms, but by grounding proposals in lived experiences and emerging visions of those often excluded from traditional decision-making spaces.
Research will be anchored in real-world processes, including:
– Deliberative Workshops with students in six Western Balkan capitals
– A Surgery Week for collaborative synthesis at Moise Palace (Cres Island)
– A Policy Hackathon on eco-digital futures
– The Academic Policy Lab 2.0, a regional platform linking research and public policy
CONDITIONS
– Fellowship duration: 4 to 6 months
– Expected start: December 15, 2025
– Monthly stipend: €1,500 net
– Fellows are responsible for regional travel and healthcare
– RECAS provides office space, institutional support, and local networks
Fellows are also expected to:
– Participate in the CAS Online Seminar series (weekly)
– Join 2 capacity-building workshops
– Spend one week at Moise Palace (Cres Island)
– Present at a regional conference and a policy event in the EU
EXPECTED OUTPUTS
Each fellow is expected to:
– Produce a research essay or brief
– Participate in the Policy Hackathon
– Share results at Surgery Week
– Contribute to the Academic Policy Lab repository
– Submit a final activity report
CALENDAR OF ACTIONS
Application deadline → 3 October 2025
Expected start of fellowship → 15 December 2025
ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA
– PhD obtained or PhD candidate (advanced stage)
– Fluent in English
– Open to all disciplines in humanities, social sciences, arts
– Priority for applicants working on Southeast Europe
HOW TO APPLY
Submit via ONLINE APPLICATION FORM
Deadline: 3 October 2025
FELLOWSHIPS ENABLED BY
Open Society Foundation – Western Balkans
ERSTE Foundation
ABOUT RECAS
RECAS connects scholars and institutions from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Croatia. It promotes regional exchange, public scholarship, and innovation at the intersection of research and policy.
