On Monday, the 22nd of May, 2017, in the week of celebrating its second anniversary, the Slovenian Australian Academic Association – SAAA held its first event, the SAAA Conference 2017: Australian and Slovenian current and future research opportunities. The event, opened by H. E. Mrs Helena Drnovšek-Zorko, Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia in Australia, took place at the EU Centre RMIT (Storey Hall, Green Brain) in Melbourne.

Photo: Manca Ogrizek

The Conference brought together 36 participants, the majority from all Slovenian Australian communities nation-wide. Academics, researchers, students, entrepreneurs as well as members of government and non-government organisations had the opportunity listening to 17 speakers (2 of them through video from Slovenia) including two keynotes Professor Glenda Sluga, ARC Laureate Fellow, Professor of International History, FAHA, The University of Sydney, and Professor Zlatko Skrbiš, President of the University of Ljubljana Global Alumni and Associates Network (SMUL) & Vice-Provost (Graduate Education, Monash University).

This one-day conference closed with a round table titled How to improve knowledge exchange between Slovenia and Australia? The conclusions of the even and recommendations will be available in the coming months.
More information about the conference is available on http://saaa.si/saaa-conference-2017-melbourne/ an on the SAAA Facebook page.

Dr Kaja Antlej

Slovenian Australian Academic Association – SAAA