Scientific Activity

  • The project “German in Croatia – Current Situation and Prospects for Encouraging a New Generation of German Language Teachers” (Deutsch in Kroatien – Stand der Dinge und Perspektiven für den DaF-Lehrkräftenachwuchs / Njemački u Hrvatskoj – stanje i perspektive za poticanje novog naraštaja nastavnika njemačkog jezika) is a professional project implemented by the Croatian Association of Teachers of German. The project is carried out at the national level with the support of the German Embassy in Zagreb and is funded by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany. Ana Keglević Blažević, Teaching Assistant, participates in the project. The project runs from 25 March 2026 to 31 December 2026.
  • The project “Croatia, Hungary, and Romani: Inclusive Solutions for Harmonized Education” is a bilateral professional project within the INTERREG VI-A Hungary–Croatia Cross-Border Cooperation Programme 2021–2027 implemented by the European Commission. Assistant Professor Stephanie Jug, PhD, participates in the project as the institutional project leader, and the project is carried out in cooperation with the University of Pécs, Hungary. The project runs from 1 March 2026 to 31 October 2027.
  • The project “Croatia and Europe through History – Transfer of Ideas and Cultural Exchange (HEPTIK)” is a scientific research project funded from source 581 – the Recovery and Resilience Facility within the National Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021–2026, implemented by the Ministry of Science, Education and Youth. Participants from the Department of German Language and Literature include Associate Professor Melita Aleksa Varga, PhD, Associate Professor Ivana Jozić, PhD, Assistant Professor Sanja Cimer Karaica, PhD, and Ana Keglević Blažević, Teaching Assistant. The project leader is Associate Professor Domagoj Tomas, PhD, from the Department of History. The project runs from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2029.
  • The project “Phenomenology of Listening. The Problem of Articulating Intelligibility in the Digital Present – FENOSLUH” is a scientific research project funded from source 581 – the Recovery and Resilience Facility within the National Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021–2026, implemented by the Ministry of Science, Education and Youth. Associate Professor Tihomir Engler, PhD, and Sanja Ivanović Grgurić, Teaching Assistant, from the Department of German Language and Literature participate in the project. The project leader is Professor Boško Pešić, PhD, from the Department of Philosophy. The project runs from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2029.
  • The project “Executive Functions in Youth – Their Role in Adaptation, Developmental Outcomes and Everyday Challenges (ECLAT-ADAPT)” is a scientific research project funded from source 581 – the Recovery and Resilience Facility within the National Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021–2026, implemented by the Ministry of Science, Education and Youth. Participants from the Department of German Language and Literature include Full Professor with Tenure Vesna Bagarić Medve, PhD, Professor Leonard Pon, PhD, Associate Professor Manuela Karlak, PhD, and Ivana Šarić Šokčević, PhD, Senior Assistant. The project leader is Professor Silvija Ručević, PhD, from the Department of Psychology. The project runs from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2029.
  • The project “Framing through Figurative Language in Public Discourse” is a scientific research project funded from source 581 – the Recovery and Resilience Facility within the National Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021–2026, implemented by the Ministry of Science, Education and Youth. The central concept around which the project is organised is framing, i.e. the process of “selection and salience of information” (Entman 1993: 52), whereby mental representations are created and subsequently activated through a particular linguistic operation, generally through spoken or written linguistic structures. Snježana Babić, PhD, from the Department of German Language and Literature participates in the project. The project leader is Professor Tanja Gradečak, PhD, from the Department of English Language and Literature. The project runs from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2029.
  • The project “The Language of Desire in Literature and Culture (JEŽEKK)” (581-UNIOS-60) is a scientific research project funded from source 581 – the Recovery and Resilience Facility within the National Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021–2026, implemented by the Ministry of Science, Education and Youth. Associate Professor Sonja Novak, PhD, and Assistant Professor Stephanie Jug, PhD, from the Department of German Language and Literature participate in the project. The project leader is Professor Biljana Oklopčić, PhD, from the Department of English Language and Literature. The project runs from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2029.
  • The project “Memory, Space and Identity in German-Language (Transcultural) Literature from Modernism to the Present” is an international scientific research project within the Multilateral Scientific and Technological Cooperation in the Danube Region programme implemented by the Ministry of Science, Education and Youth. Associate Professor Sonja Novak, PhD, project leader, and Assistant Professor Stephanie Jug, PhD, project associate, participate in the project, which is carried out in cooperation with the Faculty of Arts of Jan Evangelista Purkyně University (Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic) and the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Arts in Bratislava. The project runs from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2027.
  • The project “Urban (Non-)Resilience in Contemporary German-Language Prose” is a one-year scientific research project funded by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek. Participants from the Department of German Language and Literature are Marijana Mandić, PhD, project leader, and Iris Spajić, PhD, project associate. The project runs from 1 September 2025 to 30 September 2026.
  • COST Action CA22115: PhraConRep, a multilingual repository of phraseological constructions in Central and Eastern European languages. PhraConRep aims to establish an infrastructure for comparative research into phraseological constructions in Central and Eastern European languages. The main objective of the project is to develop a multilingual repository of phraseological constructions starting from two central languages, German and Russian, and to identify and describe equivalents in ten Slavic languages (Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Macedonian, Polish, Serbian, Slovenian, Slovak and Ukrainian) as well as Hungarian. Project duration: 9 November 2023 to 8 November 2027. Project co-leader and leader of the Croatian working group: Professor Vladimir Karabalić, PhD; associates: Associate Professor Ivana Jozić, PhD, Associate Professor Manuela Karlak, PhD, Assistant Professor Stephanie Jug, PhD, Snježana Babić, PhD, Branka Barčot, PhD, Mario Schwierz, Martina Kovačević, and Bruno Eržić (administrative associate).
  • COST Action CA21166 Social Sciences and Humanities for Transformation and Climate Resilience, acronym COST SHiFT (Action Chair: Prof. Dr. Fernanda Rollo, Universidade Nova de Lisboa; participants: Associate Professor Sonja Novak, PhD, Management Committee member and WG1 associate, and Assistant Professor Stephanie Jug, PhD, WG1 associate), project duration 26 September 2022–25 September 2026. The project applies a transdisciplinary approach to addressing the challenges caused by climate change, focusing on the potential of the humanities and social sciences and the ways in which they can contribute to resilience and green transformation.
  • The project Heterogenität und Didaktik im Unterricht is an international BIP Erasmus+ programme carried out in cooperation with Justus Liebig University (Giessen) and Comillas Pontifical University (Madrid). The aim of the project is to recognise and value heterogeneity in teaching through didactic and methodological approaches, with particular emphasis on the didactics of literature and teacher education. Project duration: 1–7 June 2025. Project leader: Prof. Dr. Thomas Möbius (JLU); associates: Associate Professor Tihomir Engler, PhD, and Sanja Ivanović Grgurić, Teaching Assistant.
  • The project Ad fontes – The Cradle of Croatian Children’s Literature (CIDKK-2019-05) is a national inter-institutional project of the Centre for Research on Children’s Literature and Culture at the Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb. The aim of the project is to identify a potential corpus of foreign-language texts for children and young adults that were available or popular among young readers in Croatia and to investigate their relationship with Croatian texts, including influences, adaptations and reception. The project was implemented from 2019 to 2025. Project leader: Associate Professor Tihomir Engler, PhD; associate: Sanja Ivanović Grgurić, Teaching Assistant.
  • The project ASKiNS21_UIP-2020-02-3695 Analysis of Systems in Crisis and New Awareness in 21st-Century Literature is an installation research project funded by the Croatian Science Foundation (www.hrzz.hr). The aim of the project is to analyse contemporary German-, English- and Croatian-language literature, with particular emphasis on systems in crisis: the family, local community, city, state, region and other social systems. From 1 February 2021 to 31 January 2026, the project was implemented at the Department of German Language and Literature of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek in cooperation with the Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek and the Department of German Studies at the University of Zadar. More information: http://askins21.ffos.hr/
  • One-year scientific research projects of the Centre for Language Research from 2022 to 2024: “Local Coherence in Written Texts in the First and Additional Language” (2022), “Patterns of Connector Use in the First and Additional Language” (2023), and “Factors Affecting Connector Use in the Additional and First Language” (2024). Project leaders: Professor Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD (2022), and Associate Professor Leonard Pon, PhD (2023–2024). Associates: Associate Professor Leonard Pon, PhD (Department of German Language and Literature), Professor Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD (Department of English Language and Literature), Professor Vesna Bagarić Medve, PhD (Department of German Language and Literature), Professor Gabrijela Buljan, PhD (Department of English Language and Literature), Professor Lidija Cvikić, PhD (Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb), Associate Professor Ana Mikić Čolić, PhD (Department of Croatian Language and Literature), Associate Professor Maja Glušac, PhD (Department of Croatian Language and Literature), Associate Professor Ivana Trtanj, PhD (Faculty of Education in Osijek), Assistant Professor Antonia Ordulj, PhD (Faculty of Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb), Associate Professor Manuela Karlak, PhD (Department of German Language and Literature), Assistant Professor Sanja Cimer Karaica, PhD (Department of German Language and Literature), Assistant Professor Draženka Molnar, PhD (Department of English Language and Literature), Ivana Šarić Šokčević, PhD (Department of German Language and Literature), Ninočka Truck-Biljan, PhD (Chair of Common Courses), Snježana Babić, PhD (Department of German Language and Literature), Vlatka Ivić (Department of English Language and Literature), and Blaženka Šoštarić (Department of English Language and Literature).
  • 2021–2024: “Metaphorical Collocations – Syntagmatic Connections between Semantics and Pragmatics” (MetaKol) (HRZZ IP-2020-02-6319), scientific research project leader: Professor Aneta Stojić, PhD; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences associate on the project: Ana Keglević Blažević, Teaching Assistant.
  • COST Action CA18126: Writing Urban Places. New Narratives of the European City, project duration from 15 March 2019 to 14 March 2023. Croatian coordinator and WG2 working group leader: Assistant Professor Sonja Novak, PhD (https://writingurbanplaces.eu/)
    The aim of the project was to conduct innovative research into human perceptions and understandings of community, society and their place through narratives. The research focused on the potential of narrative methods for the urban development of medium-sized European cities and was based on an interdisciplinary approach combining the humanities, technical sciences and social sciences.
  • 2018–2020: “Internationalisation of Higher Education. Development and Establishment of an Integrated Study Programme in Medicine in German”, UP.03.01.1.02.0030, a professional project within the European Social Fund, led by the Faculty of Medicine Osijek. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences associates on the project: Assistant Professor Sanja Cimer, PhD, Assistant Professor Stephanie Jug, PhD, Ana Keglević, Teaching Assistant, Assistant Professor Sonja Novak, PhD, and Assistant Professor Leonard Pon, PhD.
  • 2019: Project “Digitised German-Language Newspapers from the 18th to the 20th Century in Croatia”, a project of the Institute of German Studies at the University of Giessen and the Department of German Language and Literature of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Osijek, under the patronage of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media of the Federal Republic of Germany and with the participation of the Museum of Slavonia in Osijek, the National and University Library in Zagreb and Digitales Forum Mittel- und Osteuropa e.V.; project leaders: Professor Thomas Möbius, PhD, and Assistant Professor Tihomir Engler, PhD; digitisation of 140,000 pages of the newspapers Die Drau (1868–1932) and Slavonische Presse (1885).
  • 2020: GIP project (Germanistische Institutionspartnerschaft) No. 57338369 of the Institute of German Studies at the University of Giessen and the Department of German Language and Literature of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek, supported by the DAAD, with the research project “Spuren deutscher Sprache, Literatur und Kultur in Kroatien”; project leaders: Professor Thomas Möbius, PhD, and Assistant Professor Tihomir Engler, PhD.
  • 2017–2020: “Coherence of Written Text in an Additional Language: Croatian, German, English, French and Hungarian in Comparison” (KohPiTekst) (HRZZ IP-2016-06-5736), project leader: Professor Vesna Bagarić Medve, PhD; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences associates on the project: Assistant Professor Sanja Cimer, PhD, Vlatka Ivić, Assistant Professor Manuela Karlak, PhD, Professor Zoltan Medve, PhD, Assistant Professor Ana Mikić Ćolić, PhD, Assistant Professor Draženka Molnar, PhD, Professor Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD, Associate Professor Leonard Pon, PhD, Ivana Šarić Šokčević, PhD, and Ninočka Truck-Biljan, PhD.
  • March 2016–March 2017: “Transculturality / Transmediality: British/American, German and Croatian Film Adaptations of Literature from 1990 to 2015”, a scientific research cooperation project within UNIOS INGI 2015; visiting researcher Professor Kamilla Elliott, PhD, University of Lancaster; project leader Professor Željko Uvanović, PhD; project participant Sonja Novak, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher.
  • September 2015–August 2018: “Establishing Intercultural Connections through Translations of Children’s Literature: Text, Context, Strategies (BIBRICH)”, project leader: Assistant Professor Smiljana Narančić Kovač, PhD (Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb); the specific task within the project involved research into the text, context and translation strategies of works of children’s and young adult literature translated from German into Croatian and vice versa during the first half of the 20th century, as well as works translated from Croatian into Esperanto and vice versa during the 20th century; participant: Assistant Professor Tihomir Engler, PhD.
  • “Aspects of Grammatical Competence of Croatian Learners of German” (UNIOS – IZIP-2014-8), participants: Assistant Professor Leonard Pon, PhD, and Assistant Professor Melita Aleksa Varga, PhD.
  • 2014: “Analysis of the Mutual Influence of Croatian and English in the Context of the Contemporary Computing Environment” (scientific research project funded by Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek), participant: Snježana Babić, Senior Lecturer; March 2015–March 2016.
  • 2012: “Kochbuch der deutschen Grammatik”, a project funded by the Donauschwäbische Kulturstiftung des Landes Baden-Württemberg Foundation (Project No. I.06.01/11), participants: Assistant Professor Melita Aleksa Varga, PhD (project leader), Associate Professor Vesna Bagarić Medve, PhD, and Assistant Professor Leonard Pon, PhD.
  • 2009: Professor Željko Uvanović, PhD – one-time invited associate in the bilateral (Montenegro and Croatia) and international scientific project Ivan Mažuranić Days (1814–1890) in Montenegro, Cetinje, 27 September–1 October 2009. CROSBI link: http://bib.irb.hr/prikazi-rad?&rad=453697 Project leader: Professor Milorad Nikčević, PhD. Active participation in the symposium within the bilateral project with an original presentation; the paper was published in the conference proceedings and the working abstract in the book of abstracts.
  • 2008–2011: ECML project from Graz “Piloting and Implementing the European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages” (EPOSTL2), international scientific project, project leader David Newby, project associate Associate Professor Vesna Bagarić Medve, PhD.
  • 2007–2011: Scientific research project “Developing Learner Autonomy through the European Language Portfolio” (ELP) (MZT 130-0000000-0790), project leader Professor Yvonne Vrhovac, PhD; participant Associate Professor Vesna Bagarić Medve, PhD (associate – scientific researcher).
  • 2007–2009: Professor Željko Uvanović, PhD – researcher/associate in the project Memory and Identity. Croatian-German Cultural Transfer (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb; project leader Professor Marijan Bobinac, PhD, 2007–2009). Project code: 130-1301070-1062 (in cooperation with German Studies at the University of Vienna and German Studies at Freie Universität Berlin). FFZG link: http://www.ffzg.unizg.hr/german/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=178&Itemid=1 Active participation in the symposium within the project with an original presentation; the paper was published in the conference proceedings. https://bib.irb.hr/lista-radova?sif_proj=130-1301070-1062
  • 2004–2007: TEMPUS project “Foreign Languages at Primary Level: Training of Teachers” (CP_JEP-18049-2003), international scientific project, project associate Associate Professor Vesna Bagarić Medve, PhD.
  • 2002–2006: Professor Željko Uvanović, PhD – researcher in the scientific project Croatian-German Literary Relations (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb; project leader Professor Marijan Bobinac, PhD, 2002–2006). Project code: 0130490. Ministry link: http://zprojekti.mzos.hr/zProjektiOld/result_det.asp?trazi=bobinac&gdje=1&Submit=Pretrazi&ID=0130490 Active participation in the symposium within the project with an original presentation; the paper was published in the conference proceedings.
  • 2002–2006: Scientific research project “English in Croatia” (MZT 0130514), project leader Professor Jelena Mihaljević Djigunović, PhD; participant Associate Professor Vesna Bagarić Medve, PhD (associate – scientific researcher).