Sonja Stojanovic Gajic

She holds an MA in Politics, Security and Integration with distinction from the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, University College London. She is currently a PhD candidate at the International Studies Department of the Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade. She is the author of the methodology for measuring security sector reform (SSR) in transitional societies from the perspective of civil society tested in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia published in the Almanac of Security Sector Oversight in the Western Balkans. She is a member of the project team Improving EU Capabilities for Peace Building (EU-CIVCAP), a three-year long project lead by the University of Bristol, supported through Horizon 2020 programme.

She is one of the lead researchers in the research on practices of security community-building “The Western Balkans from Conflict Zone to Security Community” as well as in the comparative review of implementation of UNSCR 1325 - Women, Peace and Security in the Western Balkans. In the period of 2006-2011, Ms Stojanovic worked part-time as a teaching assistant for security studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Belgrade. Prior to taking up her current appointment, she worked with the OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro in the strategic management program for the Serbian and Montenegrin police services in the period 2002-2005. She has extensive experience of working as a consultant and trainer for different international organizations (UNDP, OSCE, DCAF), political groups and civil society organizations in the Western Balkans on security sector reform, civic participation, gender mainstreaming, think-tank management. She is representing BCSP as a Serbian member of OSCE Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutes for which she drafted Serbian case study of Threat Perceptions in the OSCE Area. She is a member of the Gender Equality Council of the Ombudsperson of Serbia, a Serbian representative in the OSCE Network of Think Tanks, and also a member of the Women in International Security (WIIS). She is an alumna of Chevening, the US State Department’s National Security Institute and the Belgrade Open School.