Transformation as a Research Topic, but Also as a Task at the University of Banja Luka

The project RETLAMI-SEE investigates the transformation of labor migrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina. A crucial part, however, of this project lies in amplifying the research capacities of the University of Banja Luka. In this text, the project team members from Banja Luka share their expectations and surprises.

Transformation as a topic

The second half of the 20th century saw many Yugoslav workers moving towards Germany and Austria. The bulk of these guest workers [Gastarbeiter in German] came from impoverished regions of Yugoslavia, first from underdeveloped parts of the northern republics, then also from the country’s much poorer south. Substantial migration occurred also within the country towards its north, especially to the republics of Croatia and Slovenia, the latter being the most prosperous unit of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Another type of migration got further intensified in the 1990s, albeit not so much for economic reasons but because of a series of devastating wars that would lead to the breakup of Yugoslavia. The worst was the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), which saw more than a hundred thousand people killed, and millions forcefully displaced. Furthermore, since the 2010s, there has been a marked increase in labor migration from Bosnia, particularly following the global financial crisis and Germany’s liberalization of migration policy towards the Western Balkans.

These former Yugoslav migrants formed often thriving communities in their host countries. They established businesses, founded restaurants or bakeries, created football clubs, and heritage language schools, amongst others. Today, many descendants of once laborers have moved up the social ladder and become business owners, engineers, lawyers, and even members of parliament in Germany, Austria and Slovenia that once received their impoverished ancestors. Bosnia and Herzegovina is also being transformed from a country of emigration to one of immigration, not just due to the shrinking of its workforce. Migrants from Asia who perceive Bosnia and Herzegovina as a European country come to study and work there.

Under the acronym RETLAMI-SEE, sociologists at the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Banja Luka are researching the life trajectories and subjective experiences of migrant workers and their families from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Slovenia, Austria, and Germany. The broad concept of “transformation” serves to investigate the impact of migration inside their countries of origin and their destination communities. The exploratory research is funded by the European Union through Horizon Europe, in its “Widening Participation and Spreading Excellence” program. This section of the European Commission’s funding scheme was established to ‘contribute to building research and innovation capacity for countries lagging behind.’¹ Therefore, the three-year project aims at much more than research: networking, capacity building, and learning from each other rest at its core.

Early-stage researchers from the University of Banja Luka’s Faculty of Political Science want to develop their skills not only through joint empirical research, but also increase their international networks, outreach and visibility. Led by the University of Banja Luka (UNIBL), the RETLAMI-SEE project brings together the Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET) at the University of Vienna, the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (abbreviated as ZRC SAZU), and the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg (IOS).²

Transformation as a task

The Faculty of Political Science at UNIBL itself is going through a transformation being confronted with a decrease in student numbers, and the strategic goal to increase its international research impact at the same time. As Dalibor Savić, an associate professor at the Department of Sociology explained, before the 1992-1995 war, academics were mostly trying to build careers inside Bosnia and Herzegovina, mainly as instructors. As part of the transition, problems with misconduct, bad academic practices, and resistance to externally imposed reforms occurred at the University of Banja Luka too. Since the early 2000s, more opportunities to study abroad have emerged. Today, Savić believes that there is a positive movement toward international cooperation and research. He himself is part of two Horizon Europe projects from which RETLAMI-SEE ‘is the biggest and the most important project so far at our faculty’. 

The project’s strong point is interdisciplinarity, sociologist Savić adds, ‘Some of our PhD students are from social work and political sciences. And our RETLAMI-SEE partners are historians, ethnologists, and anthropologists. So, it’s very important to have interdisciplinary collaboration today.’

Sociologist Andjela Pepić is the key person behind RETLAMI-SEE and coordinates the action. She also leads the Center for Development and Research Support at the Rectorate of the University of Banja Luka. Pepić’s primary focus of research is labor. She wanted to create a project that could both further her research and develop capacities for cooperation inside and beyond the UNIBL as well. The sociologist is happy about ‘doing a lot of expert interviews with people who are in one way or another working with or for labor migrants, including the agencies for labor and the employment, including the mediation agencies, but also non-governmental organizations supporting labor migrants in obtaining their rights in the host countries’. Pepić says that additional support in the management and administration of research is needed: ‘Researchers hate when you tell them [to write about] impact’. Projects like RETLAMI-SEE provide opportunities to train especially young researchers to apply for third party funding, write deliverables and target indicators, manage staff, file reports, and much more.

Bojana Vukojević is an assistant professor at the sociology department, and also a key person of RETLAMI-SEE. As a young academic, she is excited about the opportunity of conducting research with international partners. UNIBL did not have the means to support much internationalization before, often not even international conference participation got financed. RETLAMI-SEE is facilitating such highly needed international exchange.

Valuable visits

Vukojević hopes that the project will help her in planning research activities in all of the phases, and conducting empirical studies within an international framework. With her colleagues from Banja Luka, she travelled to the project’s partners in Vienna, Ljubljana and Regensburg. She realized that ‘the study visits and the exchanges with partners were especially valuable because they made this collaboration feel very concrete, you know. And what surprised me was how much I benefited from informal conversations, when people are more relaxed and openly share their own research challenges and solutions’. Vukojević is looking forward to establishing even more meaningful connections with other researchers working on migration and multiculturalism in Southeastern Europe in particular. A positive surprise for her was that through the project she has built stronger connections with PhD students at her own faculty. Students wanted to hear about her research, her study visit experiences, and inform themselves about concrete opportunities of RETLAMI-SEE such as mentorships. ‘And this, for me, is an additional value in terms of my pedagogical work and long-term sustainability of the project’ Vukojević concluded.

One such beneficiary is Nikolina Sučević, a PhD student at the Faculty of Political Science and head of a center for social work. Her PhD investigates the media portrayal of social work in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. As part of the mentorship program of RETLAMI-SEE, Nikolina was able to visit her mentor at IOS in Regensburg, Ulf Brunnbauer, director of IOS. ‘Maybe it’s just my feeling that the PhD process is very lonely’ says Sučević. She is glad to receive advice on how to publish, such as how to choose good journals, how to handle comments, but also how to identify predatory publishers. ‘Not a lot of people from the early academic paths have the opportunity to communicate and work closely with professors from established universities and research centers abroad. We also don’t have a big library which we can use here. I’m really grateful for this opportunity.’

Research management and administration

Another specificity of RETLAMI-SEE is that networking and exchange includes also the administrative and research supporting staff at the university. Milica Marić is a project manager at the Center for Development and Research Support of the University of Banja Luka. Although staffed by only four people, the center supports researchers and conducts its own projects: ‘We support them in preparing third party funding applications, in implementing processes even after the project is awarded. We are organizing events, workshops, info days, and we actively assist researchers in developing their careers’, Marić explains. RETLAMI-SEE understands Research Management and Administration (RMA) as a key component to ensure the integrity and accountability of every research project, be it national or international.

Meeting international colleagues was important for Marić, as in her words, ‘[you] stop feeling just like an assistant and start feeling like an RMA professional’. She has been involved in several EU projects, one of which is RETLAMI-SEE. Although she does mostly ‘supportive work’ as she terms it, the highlight in the project for her so far was that she co-authored a manual that can serve as a roadmap to establish RMA offices and support for researchers in Widening Countries.³

Much appreciated EU support

EU funding remains crucial in fostering research in the Western Balkans, until the countries develop their own sufficient research financing capacities. Instruments such as the “Widening Participation and Spreading Excellence” program of Horizon Europe enable researchers and administrators of the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Banja Luka for the leap towards increased international visibility. The exchanges of experiences with international researchers from Vienna, Ljubljana and Regensburg have proved successful in giving confidence to young researchers and project managers to take on the additional work of international cooperation. A laborious work that certainly will transform every project partner in its own terms.

1. https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe/widening-participation-and-spreading-excellence_en (accessed 26 March 2026) [↩]
2. “Enhancing Capacities for Quality and Impactful Research on Transformations, Labor and Migration in Southeast Europe” https://retlami-see.fpn.unibl.org/eng/ (accessed 26 March 2026) [↩]
3. Milica Marić and Tamara Nježić: Manual: Best practices and weaknesses in project cycle management for Horizon Europe projects, 2026 https://retlami-see.fpn.unibl.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Deliverable-2.3_RETLAMI-SEE_final.pdf [↩]

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