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At this session, research psychologist and consultant Jeanette Hadaschik (MSc) will share insights on disability inclusion, drawing from her own lived experience, academic research, and practical involvement in creating more inclusive work environments.

The fifth edition of the NEBletter “LET BE WOODEN” from the LIFE BE-WoodEN project is now published.

The UP Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies (UP FAMNIT) invites applications for a postdoctoral researcher to work on the research project “Linear codes through special classes of functions – relationship and design”, led by Prof. Dr. Enes Pasalic and funded by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS).

At UP, the autumn promotion ceremony for new Doctors of Science took place on Thursday, 14 October 2025. The Vice-Rector for Scientific Research and Development, Prof. Dr. Štefko Miklavič, together with the deans of the faculties and mentors, conferred doctoral degrees on 12 new Doctors of Science, who have now joined the growing community of PhD graduates from the University of Primorska.

The European Wood Policy Platform (WoodPoP) held its Fourth High Level Meeting at InnoRenew CoE in Izola, uniting senior government officials, regional organizations, and key stakeholders from across Europe. The hybrid event centered on the vital role of wood and wood-based products in driving Europe’s clean, just, and competitive transformation.

Today, October 14, 2025, this year's recipients of the highest national awards and recognitions for outstanding achievements in scientific research and development (Zois and Puh awards and prizes, and the Ambassador of Science of the Republic of Slovenia) were announced in Ljubljana.

We have successfully wrapped up the fifth edition of the social-sports event ŠtartUP. Once again, the first Saturday of October was dedicated to relaxed mingling between first-year students, returning students, and the professional services of the University of Primorska (UP) – all those who have been, and continue to be, an invaluable support to students throughout their studies at UP.

This year's Rector's Day will take place on Wednesday, 15 October 2025, once again in the spirit of socialising and getting to know each other. We invite you to take a day off from your everyday commitments on Rector's Day and add your own little piece to the mosaic of team spirit. 

InnoRenew CoE was established as a flagship project funded by the European Commission and the Republic of Slovenia, and has recently joined University of Primorska, Andrej Marušič Institute.

Based on the analysis performed by Stanford University, Dr. Anna Sandak, InnoRenew CoE, UP IAM researcher, Materials research group leader and Associate Professor at the University of Primorska, is among the world’s top-cited scientists in 2024.

InnoRenew CoE (UP IAM) is seeking a well-qualified individual to join its research team within the European project WoodStock. The selected candidate will contribute expertise in economics and financial management to the creation of the European Wood Construction Observatory (ECWO). The ECWO aims to provide comprehensive guidelines and solutions for circular and zero-waste construction, tools to expand the knowledge base on sustainable timber construction, and a platform for collecting, sharing, and exchanging best practices, including the results of the WoodStock project.

The InnoRenew CoE International Conference 2025: From lab to life - innovative solutions for a healthier and greener built environment took place on 16–17 September 2025. The event brought more than 40 participants from 13 countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Iran, Italy, Hungary, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and the USA) to Izola.

The 12th Doctoral Summer School in Discrete Mathematics took place at UP FAMNIT between 7 and 13 September 2025. The event was co-organised by UP FAMNIT, Institute Andrej Marušič (UP IAM), the Slovenian Discrete and Applied Mathematics Society (SDAMS), and the Institute of Mathematics, Physics and Mechanics (IMFM), in collaboration with the Center for Discrete Mathematics at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education (UL PEF).

Today, 12 September 2025, the third Community Day took place under the title Building Bridges Between Support Systems for Suicidal Behaviour. This year’s event, organised by the Slovene Centre for Suicide Research (UP IAM SCSR), focused on strengthening collaboration across sectors, bringing together professionals from education, healthcare, social services, and NGOs to improve coordination among support systems and strengthen responses to young people in distress.

On Thursday, 11 September 2025, the UP IAM Researchers' Assembly of Researchers held elections for the position of Director of UP IAM. The Election Commission has completed its work and, in its final report, confirmed a voter turnout of 69.3%, with 70 eligible voters participating in the election.

The consortium of the European project The Modular Mental Health Toolbox (MentBox) is celebrating its first anniversary with a two-day meeting on September 11–12, 2025, hosted by the Andrej Marušič Institute University of Primorska in Koper, Slovenia.

InnoRenew CoE, UP IAM is seeking a well-qualified and highly motivated individual to work in the Engineered Living Materials (ELM) laboratory at the InnoRenew CoE department.

In the ELM laboratory, we work at the interface of microbiology, materials science and chemistry. The technician will be employed at the InnoRenew CoE, Andrej Marušič Institute, University of Primorska under the supervision of Assoc Prof. Anna Sandak. It is expected that the technician will contribute to the projects ERC ARCHI-SKIN (GA #101044468), EIC REMEDY (GA #101185862), and other ongoing activities.

Expected start date: October 1, 2025.

InnoRenew CoE, UP IAM is seeking a well-qualified individual to work on a PhD research project at the department in Izola, Slovenia. The successful candidate will be employed full-time at the University of Primorska and will be required to enroll in the PhD study program Renewable Materials for Healthy Built Environments at University of Primorska.

The research institute InnoRenew CoE, established in 2017, became an independent research department within the Institute Andrej Marušič at the University of Primorska (UP IAM) at the end of July this year. Today, the milestone was celebrated in the InnoRenew CoE building together with partners, while the department’s future plans were presented.

On Thursday, July 31, 2025, the exhibition "Discover, Participate, Explore – Citizen Science in Slovenia" opened on Krakovski nasip in Ljubljana and will be on display until August 31, 2025. Guided tours will also be available on August 7 and 21.

In the months from May to July, projects were approved at the University of Primorska (UP) that follow the key strategic directions of UP and support important research areas. The following projects were acquired at UP FAMNIT and UP IAM:

Prof. Dr. Vita Poštuvan, Deputy Head of the Slovene Centre for Suicide Research (SCSR), which operates under the Andrej Marušič Institute at the University of Primorska (UP IAM), recently completed a sabbatical tour of four leading British universities: the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester, University College London (UCL), and Middlesex University.

Professor Hans Bodlaender from Utrecht University is visiting Professor Martin Milanič for a research stay from July 21 to 25. He shared a few words about his experience with us:

Our university is proud to be part of a new event—UNI-SI, the Festival of Slovenian Universities—which will take place on 16 and 17 January 2026 at the Ljubljana Exhibition Centre, in cooperation with all members of the Rectors' Conference of the Republic of Slovenia (RKRS).

At its second regular meeting held on July 16, 2025, the Electoral Commission confirmed that the proposed candidate for Director of UP IAM, Prof. Dr. Vito Vitrih, submitted his Work Program and Curriculum Vitae (CV) within the required deadline.

The Departments of Mathematics of the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies (FAMNIT) and Andrej Marušič Institute (IAM) of the University of Primorska are seeking a top early-career researcher for a postdoctoral position in the area of Galois geometry and group actions, in connection with the research grant of Prof. Dr. Michel Lavrauw, titled High-Dimensional Actions of Classical Groups in Galois Geometry funded by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS).

The Departments of Mathematics of Andrej Marušič Institute (UP IAM) and the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies (UP FAMNIT) of the University of Primorska are seeking a top early-career researcher for a postdoctoral position in the area of algebraic graph theory and permutation groups, in connection with the research grant of Prof. Dr. Klavdija Kutnar, titled Extensions of Erdos-Ko-Rado theorem to transitive permutation groups funded by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS).

The first Saturday of October once again brings the opportunity for a networking event designed to connect students with companies from the Coastal-Karst region, as well as representatives from sports and cultural associations, humanitarian and other non-governmental organizations. This sports-social event, which attracted  early 500 participants last year, will be taking place for the fifth time and offers a fantastic opportunity to present your activities to students from the University of Primorska through various engaging formats. Join us on October 4th, 2025, at Žusterna Seaside Park from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM.

The Election Commission for the election of the Director of UP IAM (hereinafter: the Election Commission) has received four proposals for candidacy.

We invite you to the presentation of the topic of the doctoral dissertation Automorphisms of bicoset digraphs and an alternative BCI problem of the student Gregory Caldwell Robson, enrolled in the doctoral study programme Mathematical Sciences (in English).

Between June 23 and 28, a conference was held in Kranjska Gora to celebrate the 70th birthday of Paul Terwilliger. The main theme of the conference focused on the mathematical fields that Paul has worked on throughout his career, all of which are related to the q-Onsager algebra.

As part of the Mission Possible mission, carried out by SpaceX with the Transporter-14 launch, the MayaSat-1 satellite was sent into orbit from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, USA.

We invite you to the presentation of the topic of the doctoral dissertation Optimization of Logistics and Scheduling Problems from Real-World Contexts of the student Daniil Baldouski, enrolled in the doctoral study programme Computer Science (in English).

We invite you to the presentation of the topic of the doctoral dissertation Analyzing Coxeter-like Graphs: From Distance Functions and Homomorphisms to Self-Dual Codes of the student Draženka Višnjić, enrolled in the doctoral study programme Mathematical Sciences (in English). 

Once again, the TRIPLE i: Intuition, Imagination, Innovation in Suicidology conference—organized for the 16th consecutive year by the Slovene Centre for Suicide Research (SCSR) at the University of Primorska, Andrej Marušič Institute (UP IAM)—was a resounding success. The event is held in memory of the late Prof. Andrej Marušič around the time of his birthday, with the main goal of encouraging intuition, imagination, and innovation in suicide research and prevention.

The Scientific Council of UP IAM, at its 9th regular session held on May 26, 2025, adopted a Resolution to Initiate the Procedure for the Election of the Director of the Andrej Marušič Institute, University of Primorska.

The Scientific Council of UP IAM, at its 1st extraordinary session held on July 14, 2025, adopted a resolution on the correction of a decision of Resolution to Initiate the Procedure for the Election of the Director of the Andrej Marušič Institute, University of Primorska.

On Wednesday, 21 May 2025, the Second meeting of PhD mentors was held at UP, organized by the Department for Research, Development and Artistic Activities. The event was attended by mentors (as well as co-mentors) of doctoral students who are pursuing their studies at UP.

From May 20 to 22, 2025, the University of Primorska (UP) and InnoRenew CoE hosted a three-day workshop titled Wood Science Beyond Europe, which brought together numerous experts in the field. Among the participants were internationally renowned wood science experts from Oregon State University, Dr. Laurence Schimleck and Dr. Scott Leavengood, the latter joining the event virtually.

As part of the GDI UP project – Green, Digital and Inclusive University of Primorska – the UP has developed a new higher education study programme Wood Innovation for Sustainability. At its 20th regular meeting (May 21, 2025), the UP Senate approved the application for accreditation of the degree program, which will be forwarded to the Council of the Slovenian Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (NAKVIS) for further examination and decision-making.

The Middle-European Conference on Applied Theoretical Computer Science (MATCOS-25) will be held October 9-10, 2025, in Koper, Slovenia. The conference is organised by the University of Primorska, Andrej Marušič Institute (UP IAM), and the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies (UP Famnit) in cooperation with InnoRenew CoE.

The Horizon Europe WoodStock project recently launched its website. Explore the latest updates, discover the project goals, and learn how the Horizon Europe WoodStock project is contributing to Europe’s carbon neutrality ambitions by visiting the website at www.woodstockproject.eu.

Today we hosted the final meeting of the Erasmus+ KA220 project FTDCHE/Sollertia - Promotion of Transversal Digital Competences in Higher Education.

Yesterday, on April 8th, Meta Lavrič successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled Experiencing Storytelling: Developing and Sharing Written Stories as an Intervention to Strengthen Mental Health in Gatekeepers, under the supervision of Professor Vita Poštuvan.

FTP (Faculty Tournament in Programming) is a competition where students have the opportunity to test their programming skills in a fun way. Participants develop a program (Player) that plays a turn-based game on their behalf against other competitors. The goal is to create a program (Player) that responds best to the strategies of other competitors without access to their source code.

Prof. Dr. Vita Poštuvan, Deputy Head of the Slovene Centre for Suicide Research at UP IAM and lecturer at the Department of Psychology at UP FAMNIT, participated as a speaker at the UNECE Regional Forum 2025, organised by the UNESCO Regional Office for Science and Culture in Europe.

Meta Lavrič, student of the doctoral study programe Suicidology and Mental Health (in Slovene) at UP FAMNIT, and researcher at UP IAM SCSR, will defend her doctoral thesis Experiencing Storytelling: Developing and Sharing Written Stories as an Intervention to Strengthen Mental Health in Gatekeepers, under the mentorship of Prof Dr Vita Poštuvan.

The defence will take place on Tuesday, 8 April 2025 at 11:30 in the Conference Room UP FAMNIT (Glagoljaška 8, ground floor).

The doctoral disertation is available in the University Library.

You are kindly invited!

Researchers from UP FAMNIT and UP IAM received the Best Paper Award at the 30th Annual ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (ACM IUI 2025), held from March 24 to 27 in Cagliari, Italy. This prestigious award recognizes groundbreaking research in the field of intelligent user interfaces, highlighting work that is expected to significantly influence the future of computing.

The University of Primorska has published a Call for Young Researchers who will undergo a four-year training programme consisting of research and academic components, based on a full-time employment contract. Each young researcher will conduct a research project under the supervision of a mentor, aligned with the specific research programme.

Slovenia has won a European tender for a high-performance supercomputer. It achieved the highest score among the applicants and the project was widely praised. IZUM Director Aleš Bošnjak believes that Slovenia's success in the tender is due to the fact that Slovenia was the first of the eight applicants in the tender to set up a supercomputer in 2021. 

The Jožef Stefan Institute has launched a public call for applications for the award “zlati znak Jožefa Stefana” (Jožef Stefan Golden Emblem), which recognises the most outstanding doctorates awarded to young researchers in the Republic of Slovenia in the last three years in the fields of Natural, Mathematical, Technical, and Life Sciences.