Professional Sector: Youth Policy and Youth Research

First Name: Dunja

Last Name: Potočnik

Nationality: Croatian

Languages: English and Croatian

Postal Address: Institute for Social Research - Amruseva 11 - 10000 Zagreb

Country: Croatia

Email: dunja@idi.hr

A few words about myself:
I am a sociologist at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb with background in both policy and research, with a strong orientation towards research areas that could bring changes to policy guidelines and their implementation. At the Institute for Social Research my main research and policy development areas are: general youth policy, education (especially vocational education and problem of the early school leavers), employment, social structure, inter and intra generational mobility, sociology of profession, IT and networks and science and research policy. My orientation towards evidence based policy is especially emphasized in my work on employment, which has been my research interest for the last seven years – following the experience I gained during work as a counsellor at the Croatian Employment Service and a high school teacher. Working on the youth employment I took part in the projects lead by the Croatian Government, the UNDP and the European Training Foundation. I have extensive experience in work for the Croatian Government and the youth NGOs (especially with the Croatian Youth Network – a member of the European Youth Forum) in the youth and science policy, namely for the National Action Plan for Youth in Croatia and science and research programmes. In 2009 I wrote a report for the Youth Partnership on youth employment and compiled the report on the Youth Partnership seminar on youth employment held in Slovenia. My newest research interest related to the youth employment is science popularisation as a mean of enhancing educational and employment opportunities. Currently I am member of the Pool of the European Youth Researchers between the European Commission and the Council of Europe, the People Programme Advisory Group for the FP7 programme at the European Commission and a member of the Croatian Committee for the Mobility of Researchers. I also have experience in the NGO sector – in 2005 I established Croatian association of young scientists and I was a secretary of the EURODOC (the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Young Researchers) in two mandates. I am also a member of the Academy for Political Development – Croatian branch of the European Council's Schools of Political Studies programme.

 My Curriculum Vitae