Description of the organisation
Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica (UMB), is the leading university in Central Slovakia. It consists of 6 faculties (Faculty of Economics, Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Political Sciences and International Relations, and Faculty of Education). The University has almost 600 university teachers and researchers, and around 8,000 students. International cooperation has been rapidly developing in recent years mainly through numerous EU programmes including the Framework Programmes. Most of research projects focus on multidisciplinary research especially in the fields of socioeconomic sciences and humanities (sociocultural anthropology, sociology, economics, history, political sciences and education) and natural sciences (mathematics, physics, chemistry and environmental sciences).
Faculty of Education at Matej Bel University consists of the Educational Research Centre and 9 departments (of social work, psychology, pedagogy, andragogy, elementary and pre-school pedagogy, ethics and civic education, theology and religious education, music and fine arts education and other teaching programmes). The departmental researchers focus on research and publication activities in the field of social sciences and humanities, cooperation with domestic and foreign universities, research institutions, social work institutions, primary and secondary schools and other educational and psychological institutions, participation in international research networks, and on building the connection between the academic ground and practice. Besides research activities, the mission of the Educational Research Centre is to create the quality background for submission and implementation of research and applied research projects and to interconnect researchers from different scientific areas. The researchers from the Faculty of Education have been involved in several national-wide and international projects as principal researchers or researchers.