ISH::Introduction::Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Status

The Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis (ISH) – Ljubljana Graduate School of the Humanities was founded in accordance with the national Higher Education Act. The resolution giving consensus for its foundation was adopted on November 24, 1995 by the national Board of Higher Education at its 17th session, in conformity with Article 49 of the Higher Education Act. As an independent organisation, the ISH was entered in the register of higher education institutions at the Ministry of Education and Sport under charter number 601-736/95.

In compliance with Article 32 of the Higher Education Act, the national Board of Higher Education has accredited six Master’s programmes offered by the ISH: Anthropology of Everyday Life, Anthropology of the Ancient Worlds, Anthropology of Genders, Historical Anthropology, Linguistics of Speech and Theory of Social Communication, as well as Social Anthropology. The Board has also adopted a resolution entitling higher education institutions conducting MA programmes to administer corresponding PhD studies.

According to Article 6 of the Higher Education Act, the ISH is authorised to confer degrees and titles in accordance with a separate law.
(An official interpretation of the Ministry of Education and Sport).

History

The Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis is the first and only autonomous higher education institution in the field of humanities and social sciences in Slovenia which attained state recognition for its academic value, and is authorised to confer MA and PhD degrees for accredited study programmes.

The ISH came into existence as a response to the need to establish an independent institution which would assist the development of missing and underdeveloped disciplines in various scientific fields in Slovenia. The idea was first broached by a group of university teachers and researchers at the University of Ljubljana. After several failed attempts to found an autonomous research and education institution in the fields of social anthropology, historical anthropology, discourse science, and epistemology, under the championship of the existing university organisation, the group themselves took the necessary steps towards establishment of an autonomous institution of higher learning.

Their first step was to begin a book series featuring Slovene translations of international literature dealing with humanities and social sciences, called Studia Humanitatis. Since its foundation in 1987, 80 works in 86 volumes have been published. In 1997 the series was reorganised into an independent publishing house.

The second step in the creation of the ISH was the establishment of a research institute in 1991. Initially known as the European Centre for Humanities, it was renamed the Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis in 1993.

The change of name and an increased number of research projects conducted within the national research programme, set the starting point for a new graduate school of humanities and, to a lesser extent, of social sciences. Education activities at the ISH began in 1993 when the institute carried out graduate study programmes for the Sociology Department at the School of Arts in Ljubljana.

In 1994, the Institute proposed the foundation of a graduate school and sought a mandatory approval of the national Board of Higher Education. In 1995, the Ljubljana Graduate School of Humanities was established, and a year later granted accreditation for three study programmes.

During the three years that followed, the ISH carried out its accredited programmes, as well as three programmes for the Sociology Department at the School of Arts. At the same time the ISH was contemplating a change concerning its collaboration with the School of Arts to alter it into co-operation based on a credit system, the main reason for this being the accreditation of further two study programmes by the Board of Higher Education in 1998.

Ever since its establishment, the ISH has endeavoured to increase further the scope of its research activities; partly in order to enable a greater students’ participation in project work. It also strove to set up an international network on the level of individual, as well as institutional, co-operation. Ever since 1995, there has been ongoing formal co-operation with the Centre Louis Gernet at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Discussions on co-operation with numerous other eminent institutions in Europe and the USA are currently underway. Furthermore, the ISH is drawing up joint projects for the development of new graduate programmes, as well as a scheme to facilitate teachers’ and students’ exchange.

The ISH was founded with the intention of complementing the existing graduate study programmes and not to compete with them. Complementarity remains the guideline in future as well. The rapid development of the School infers a change in the framework of its operation and calls for adjustments in the organisational structure of the whole institution. The basis for the reorganisation will be a credit system and, consequently, lateral transitions between study programmes.

Goals

The ISH has four main goals:

  • to conduct graduate study of disciplines and fields not offered by other Slovenian institutions of higher education;
  • to offer study programmes of interest to students from a region which expands beyond Slovenia’s border, especially those from Central and Eastern Europe; and to encourage and support the enrolment of foreign students;
  • to create possibilities for Slovenian university teachers and researchers to work in fields that are poorly represented in the Slovenian scientific environment, but which are nevertheless considered interesting and necessary for their further development, as well as for their respective fields of work;
  • to establish close co-operation and ties with higher education institutions engaged in the same or similar fields as those the ISH specialises in. The main intention of the thus-created inter-institutional network is to convey knowledge which would otherwise not be accessible to students, and to enable the mobility of teachers and students. Another goal of the network is co-operation in research.