The Union University School of Law in Belgrade (UUSL) has been organizing, instigating and advancing the academic and scientific research study activities of its professors, teachers and teaching fellows ever since its foundation, linking them up with peer organizations in Serbia and abroad. UUSL was accredited to implement research study activities acc. to the then Academic and Scientific Research Study Implementation Law two times so far (in 2013 and in 2017). It adopts its own Academic and Scientific Research Study (ASRS) Action Plan, as well as a Young Academic and Scientific Researchers’ Professional Development Plan acc. to the current Science and Research Law.
ASRS activities of the School are implemented within the scope of its ASRS unit comprising of all professors, teachers and teaching fellows employed by UUSL and run by the Vice Dean for Scientific Research. The School does it in the following way:
- Implementation of ASRS projects and individual research of its professors, teachers and teaching fellows;
- Publishing (publication of the Pravni zapisi /Serb. for ‘The Legal Chronicles’/ scholarly journal, as well as academic, scientific and professional monographs and textbooks);
- Organization of academic, scientific and professional events;
- International cooperation;
- Professional development of young academic and Scientific researchers.
The results of UUSL professors’, teachers’ and teaching fellows’ ASRS activities are published in national and international academic and scientific magazines, conference papers collections, monographs, along with their presentation at various academic, scientific and professional events.
The UUSL scholarly journal Pravni zapisi has been categorized as a top-level significance national magazine (category M51) and indexed, among others, in the HeinOnline (an international online research base) and the ERIH PLUS (an academic journal index for humanities and social sciences).
Publishing represents a significant part of the ASRS engagement of the School. UUSLB publishes textbooks, monographs and other professional, academic and scientific publications resulting from the work of its ASRS unit and students. It is either an own venture or a collaborative one with other publishers, most often with the Službeni glasnik Public Publishing Company.
Independently or within the scope of the Union University in Belgrade, the UUSL cooperates with schools and universities abroad, as well as other international and foreign organizations. International cooperation takes the form of engaging professors, teachers, teaching fellows and PhD students in current international projects, students’, professors’, teachers’ and teaching fellows’ mobility and networking with peer schools and universities in Europe and worldwide.
UUSL is a member of several international academic networks, the most notable being the European Public Law Organisation and the OLA Network (Observatory for Local Autonomy).
UUSL professors are also members of expert and advisory bodies of distinguished international organizations. Assoc. Prof. Saša Gajin, SJD, is a member of ECRI – the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance – ECRI of the Council of Europe (CoE). Prof. Jelena Jerinić, SJD, is a member of the Group of Independent Experts for the European Charter of Local Self-Government), an advisory body of the CoE Congress of Local and Regional Authorities.
Our School has a very intensive international cooperation in implementing educational activities. Besides regular organization and hosting of lectures delivered by guest lecturers from foreign universities, UUSL researchers regularly spend some time at foreign universities and present their research at international conferences. Detailed information on these activities are to be found in the UUSL chronicles (i.e. published annually, in Vol. II of the Pravni zapisi scientific magazine issued in December each year).