After almost two years, the H2020 PAVE Project partners met again in person in Belgrade on October 29th. The aim of this regional meeting was for researchers to present and discuss preliminary findings from the field work conducted in North Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, and Bosnia & Herzegovina. All research teams presented key empirical findings and conceptual implications along the two main axes of the PAVE project: community vulnerability and community resilience towards violent extremism.
ELIAMEP’s PAVE team, represented by Ioannis Armakolas and Bledar Feta, made an extensive presentation of the preliminary findings of the fieldwork the team conducted in North Macedonia in July 2021. Within the implementation of the PAVE project, the team of ELIAMEP’s South-East Europe Programme namely Ioannis Armakolas, Yorgos Christidis, Julianne Funk and Bledar Feta with the support of ZIP Institute conducted research in two field sides in North Macedonia, notably in Tetovo and Kumanovo.
During the 25-days presence in the terrain, the team, through the organization of focus group discussions and conducting key informant interviews, managed to collect empirical data, serving the objective of PAVE’s respective Work Packages. The team organized 4 focus-group discussions and conducted 29 semi-structured interviews with civil society activists/members, politicians, religious community leaders, public servants working in the police, in security departments, in education, in social work, journalists and other media professionals, academics and other experts.
