Sonja Stojanović Gajić

Member of the Executive Board

Sonja is an experienced researcher and practitioner of security sector governance and conflict-transformation and an organizational consultant.

From December 2006 to October 2019, she led the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) as its Director, during which time she helped transform it from an advocacy NGO into a specialised think tank leading research of security sector public oversight in the Balkans. Under her leadership, BCSP became the only Western Balkan think tank to be ranked among the most influential Security and International Affairs Think Tanks in the Global Think Tank ranking.

Her original contribution is development of innovative engagement tools such as a methodology for measuring security sector reform (SSR) by civil society organisations, which has subsequently been utilised in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. She initiated a number of national and regional civil society partnerships and multi-stakeholder platforms to address some of the key challenges in the Balkans – such as deterioration of democracy and democratic governance of security, normalisation of Belgrade-Pristina relations, and accession to the EU.

Before BCSP, she has worked on a police reform programme for the OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro, with a focus on introducing strategic planning in both police services. She has been teaching at the Faculty of Political Science in Belgrade and has participated in international academic research on policing, peacebuilding, EU and gender. She has more than twenty years of experience as a facilitator and trainer with diverse groups from grass-root activists to MPs and international security institutions from Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. She has assisted as a strategic planning and change management consultant for both civil society and public administrations in the Balkans. For her accomplishments in civilian oversight of the security sector and the inclusion of youth in security research, she received 2019 Person of the Year award from the OSCE Mission to Serbia.

She holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Belgrade and graduated with distinction from a master’s programme in Politics, Security and Integration at University College London (UCL).

RELATED