Faculty of Arts of Comenius University > Research at the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava > Research Profile of the Faculty of Arts > Research Centres

Research Centres

Centre of Excellence for social innovation at the Comenius University in Bratislava

(CESIUK) was established under the project "Global and local processes in Slovakia: the development of social innovation in terms of internationalization of the European Union". It has been a unique project bringing together the highest quality researchers from different disciplines in research and forecasting of social innovation.

Social innovation represent new ideas and practical solutions that respond to current and future trends and propose measures addressing the current needs of people and ultimately lead to improving their living conditions.

The main objective of the Centre of Excellence for social innovation is the development of human, social and cultural capital through research of strategic social innovation in the context of globalization, Europeanisation and transformation in Slovakia and abroad. To achieve these goals Centre has been providing unique research infrastructure procured under the project and advancing joint research, based on a multidisciplinary approach, linking the methods applied in different social sciences with the mathematical and economic modelling.

Research activity of the Centre focuses on social innovation in the four basic dimensions:

  • Political dimension,
  • Social dimension,
  • Dimension of public policy and economics
  • Dimension of culture, identity and communication.

An important part of the Centre’s activities is also transformation of research results into practical recommendations for public policy-making. Another Centre’s activity is the participation on domestic and international research projects (e.g. The Changing Patterns of EU Foreign Policy Making System and the Small EU Member States supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency, APVV-0484 – 10).

Centre has also created Social Science Laboratory equipped with specialized software for qualitative and quantitative analyses, access to renowned electronic journal databases as well as domestic and foreign literature on social sciences research.

Centre of Excellence for social innovation at the Comenius University in Bratislava was initiated by Department of Political Sciences. Within the research activities of the project have been involved several departments of the Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences and Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics. From 2009 until 2012 was the project funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the Operational Program Research and Development, measure 4.1 "Supporting networks of excellent research and development departments as pillars of regional development in the Bratislava region“. „We are supporting research activities in Slovakia/The project is co-financed by EU funds“.

Contact: cesiukfphil.uniba.sk
Contact person: Prof. Darina Malová, Ph.D. (darina.malovauniba.sk)

Centre for Territorial and International Studies is a part of the Faculty of Arts at the Comenius University in Bratislava. Centre unites over twenty academics and experts with strong competitive research and publication record. Centre was founded in 2006 to enhance cooperation among different disciplines focusing on diverse regional and global issues; including European integration that became the most popular topic for academic and broad public. Main target groups include students, doctoral students and young professionals who primarily do not have direct opportunity to study European integration. Centre aims as well in the advancement and dissemination of EU related knowledge to broader public. Centre's activities include public discussions; lectures or conferences devoted to the EU affairs.

Centre for Territorial and International Studies has at its disposal the respective personnel, technical equipment, organisational structure and management support necessary for the project implementation. For instance, the Social Science Laboratory in the premises of the Faculty of Arts provides high quality technical infrastructure for social and behavioural analyses and training of Ph.D. students. The Laboratory is equipped with 20 workstations with specialised software for quantitative (e.g. SPSS) and qualitative data analysis of documents or interviews (namely Atlas.ti and NVivo), access to Slovak media databases and online databases of international peer-reviewed journals as well as with contemporary domestic and international literature from the area of social science research. The research team also has at its disposal the Virtual conference system which makes possible to organise virtual seminars and conferences. The virtual conference system also makes possible to make audio and video records of interviews and group discussions for the needs of qualitative data analysis.

Contact person: Mr. Pavol Baboš, Ph.D. (pavol.babosuniba.sk)

Centre for Gender Studies

is a university based research and educational institution at the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava. Established in June 2001, as the first institution in Slovakia of its kind, it focuses on research and teaching activities in the field of feminist theory and gender studies. The subject of its interest are especially the issues of gender identity, gender-specific differences and symbols which structure the relationships between women and men in a fundamental way and cause inequality between them as well as topics on feminist epistemology, methodology of feminist research and ´women in science´.

The Centre is to provide important knowledge, theoretical conceptions and reflection of problems tackling gender studies, support gender sensitivity for the existing structural inequalities between genders, which will lead to cultivation of critical thinking and ability of gender argumentation. The activities of the Centre are oriented towards the gender analysis of various socio-political problems. This interdisciplinary program concentrates on relations between genders in different areas of life and theory, like philosophy and science. It follows up a ten years tradition of similarly oriented educational and research activities which had been accomplished in cooperation with professionals from various disciplines from the Faculty of Philosophy and experts from NGO´s.

The main objectives of the Centre is to provide important knowledge, theoretical conceptions and reflection of problems tackling gender studies, support gender sensitivity for the existing structural inequalities between genders, which will lead to cultivation of critical thinking and ability of gender argumentation. The activities of the Centre are oriented towards the gender analysis of various socio-political problems. This interdisciplinary program concentrates on relations between genders in different areas of life and theory, like philosophy and science. It follows up a ten years tradition of similarly oriented educational and research activities which had been accomplished in cooperation with professionals from various disciplines from the Faculty of Philosophy and experts from NGO´s. The Centre has rich cooperation with partner organizations as ASPEKT, Cultural and Feminist Journal and Feminist Project; Centre of Gender Studies, Charles University in Prague; Gender Studies Centre, Masaryk University in Brno and other research and women´s associations in Slovakia. The Centre is also involved in the international network NEWW.

The Gender Studies Centre has realized some pioneering projects such as:

  • research projects on theoretical and epistemological aspects of feminist thinking and feminist research,
  • transdisciplinary working groups on the methodology of oral history used in the Women´s Memory Project,
  • international workshops on the application and evaluation of the methods of oral history for educational purposes,
  • workshops on the results of research realized by the Gender Studies Centre on the situation and status of women university teachers and researchers at the Faculty of Philosophy at Comenius University,
  • interdisciplinary educational project of Slovak and Austrian students and teachers from the Vienna University and Comenius University on gender issues, which resulted into the publication of the book ”The Problems of Gender Identity in Art, Architecture, Film and Literature”.

Contact Persons: Assoc. Prof. Zuzana Kiczková, Ph.D. (zuzana.kiczkovauniba.sk); Assoc. Prof. Mariana Szapuová, Ph.D. (mariana.szapuovauniba.sk)