Name and Surname
Jovica Pavlović
Affiliation
Institute for European Studies – research associate
Contact email
jovica.pavlovic@ies.rs
Short Biography
Jovica Pavlović is a research associate at the Institute for European Studies. He was born in 1989 in Warsaw (Poland). He grew up in New York (USA), Stockholm (Sweden) and Obrenovac (Serbia). During his stay in Stockholm (2005 – 2011), he graduated from the International High School of the Stockholm Region, and then entered the Faculty of Political Sciences of Stockholm University. There he earned a degree in political science, and later a master’s degree in political science, becoming – at the age of twenty-two – the youngest master’s degree in political science at Stockholm University. Having shown academic potential during his studies, in 2013 he decided to enroll in doctoral studies in political sciences at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Belgrade. He defended his doctoral dissertation “Application of the Ethics of Secession in the Assessment of the Justification of Requests for Secession in Eastern and Southeastern Europe” in 2022. In addition to his career in science, he is also active in the civil society sector. He is a permanent associate of the Center for Applied European Studies, where he performs the role of researcher on various research projects. He participated in the implementation of many international projects, including the project “Legislation in the field of environmental protection and sustainable development – the situation in Serbia and the experiences of Croatia’s membership in the European Union”, which are implemented by the Institute for European Studies and the Faculty of Law Osijek, with the support of the Foundation Hans Zaidel. He is a former scholarship holder of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Belgrade Open School. In addition to Serbian, he speaks English fluently, and he also speaks Swedish. He is married and the father of one child
Research abstract
Research title: Towards energy transition through cross-border inter-municipal cooperation – unexplored potentials of decentralization and demetropolization
Summary: The existing approach to the green/energy transition in the countries of the Western Balkans is predominantly based on the encouragement of large/centralized “top-down” state projects that involve the transition from the use of fossil fuels to cleaner – but also long-term sustainable – sources of energy in various areas of industrial production. Although of crucial importance, the presented approach to the energy transition represents only one aspect of its realization. Another extremely important segment of the successful implementation of the energy transition is the one that relies on a decentralized “bottom-up” approach; an approach that strives to increase and maximally apply the capacities of both local governments and the population itself, in order to achieve goals related to the energy transition. However, the potential of the “bottom-up” approach to the energy transition remains insufficiently explored, especially in Serbia, where reducing environmental pollution is a difficult task that inevitably requires more active civic engagement.
In this regard, the experience of neighboring EU countries can be crucial in terms of:
- adjustments and implementation in the neighborhood of already successfully applied “bottom-up” initiatives and green/energy transition policies, but also
- facilitation of local green/energy transition through cross-border inter-municipal cooperation of neighboring local self-government units; cooperation, which would aim at both the transfer of experience (“know-how”) and the joint implementation of relevant projects.
This research therefore aims to identify the unexplored potential of cross-border inter-municipal cooperation with the aim of more efficient, successful and complete implementation of the energy transition. As such, it is intended for the main “stakeholders”; primarily to representatives of local self-governments, local activists/organizations dedicated to green policies, but also to the general population. The results of the research – which is interdisciplinary, since it relies on the methodology of legal, political and economic sciences – will be useful in terms of facilitation, additional encouragement and preparation of the ground for cross-border inter-municipal cooperation aimed at the energy transition of the Republic of Serbia.