The Institute has been officially founded as a private non-governmental organization on March 1, 2006 and was registered in the National Court Register on May 29, 2006. The founders were Blaž Križnik, Marko Peterlin, Peter Šenk and Tadej Žaucer. IPoP functions as a non-profit organization. Since February 2008 the Institute has also been registered as a research organization at the Slovenian Research Agency.
IPoP includes employees and coworkers, founders, Institute board and Advisory board. The Institute board is an umbrella body that decides on the institute’s policy and monitors its development. The advisory board is a body of experts that also awards research titles.
Staff
Aidan Cerar, PhD, project manager
sociologist
Aidan is a sociologist trained at the University of Ljubljana and Leuphana University of Lüneburg. At IPoP he has mainly been involved in projects dealing with urban regeneration, town centre revitalisation, placemaking, tactical urbanism, smart cities, and sustainable mobility. He regularly lectures at universities and is a faculty member at Doba Business School where he teaches several courses within postgraduate programme Management of Smart Cities. Aidan is often the keynote speaker at national and international conferences. He has been involved in the development of placemaking mechanism Zunaj (Outdoors) and Library of Things, a social innovation located in Ljubljana. He has overseen public participation in the drafting of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan for the City of Ljubljana. Aidan is also the coauthor of Digital Development Strategy of the City of Ljubljana. Before his position at IPoP, he had been working at the Regional Development Agency of Ljubljana Urban Region.
Urška Didovič, student
Landscape architect
Urška Didovič is a mater’s graduate in Landscape Architecture at the University of Ljubljana. During her studies, she was active in the activities and bodies of the Association of Landscape Architecture Students, the Student Organization of the Biotechnical Faculty and the Student Council of the Biotechnical Faculty, as well as the Network of European Landscape Architecture Students – ELASA. She spent one semester of her master’s degree at the Technical University of Munich. In 2020, she completed an internship at IPoP and since then has been involved in projects related to green space management and active mobility. She is currently writting her final master’s thesis at the Department of Landscape Architecture UL BF. She is a member of the cultural environmental association Pazi! Park.
Nela Halilović, project manager
geographer
Nela is MA in geography, educated at Department for geography at Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana and at Department for social demography and regional planning at Charles University in Prague. As a student, she was actively involved in activities and board of Slovenian student geography association and European geography association, and now she is a member of the board of Ljubljana geographical association. In her local environment, she was active in the field of tourism, sustainable mobility and youth politics and was granted as an above-average socially engaged student. After studies, she was employed at Municipality of Velenje, as a project manager working on transnational EU projects in sustainable mobility and participative planning. She works at IPoP since 2019, mainly on topics related to sustainable mobility with a focus on Campaigning for active mobility.
Goran Jakovac, office manager
landscape architect
Goran is originally from the port city of Rijeka in Croatia. He graduated from landscape architecture at the University of Ljubljana. He went on to design private gardens and municipality plans in Upper Savinja Valley in Slovenia. He spent several years working as an office manager and a riverboat captain at a local tourist boating company on the Ljubljanica River. Later he became a licenced tour guide. At IPoP, he manages the office and administration, documentation and map design. He loves to spend his free time exploring and taking photos.
Pavlina Japelj, junior expert
communicologist and sociologist
Urban Jeriha, project manager
architect
Urban has been trained as an architect at the University of Ljubljana, where he obtained a Master’s degree and worked as a technical assistant. He works on sustainable urban development, sustainable mobility, and collaborative urban regeneration. He is a researcher and author of several publications on cities, mobility, and spatial development. He worked as a practising architect, collaborated with several NGOs in Europe and took an active role in traffic policy-related local initiatives. He founded Preboj Association, where he organises cultural events and consults non-governmental organisations.
Zala Koleša, strokovna sodelavka
architect in urbanistka
Zala is an architect and urban planner with experience in both architectural practice and research on urbanism and the built environment. She earned her master’s degree from the Faculty of Architecture in Ljubljana, where she also worked as a technical and research assistant. During her studies, she furthered her education at the School of Urbanism in Paris at the University of Paris-Est Créteil. Her research at the Faculty of Architecture focused on acquiring and processing GIS data, particularly in public transportation and housing development placement—work she continues and expands upon at IPoP.
Petra Očkerl, project manager
sociologist and translator
Petra obtained an MA in sociology – spatial and environmental studies and BA in translation – Slovene, English, and German at the University of Ljubljana. She is the contact person for the National URBACT Point for Slovenia and a regular contributor to the URBACT Blog. She leads a project supporting the implementation of urban policy in Slovenia and is engaged with other projects in the field of sustainable spatial and urban development and urban regeneration. She is also collaborating in studies on EU cohesion policy.
Jana Okoren, junior expert
translator
Jana has a BA in Translation Studies awarded by the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. In addition to translation work, she was also engaged in other activities and projects in Slovenia and Italy, mainly in the field of culture. In Rome she has worked as a Coordinator and Artistic Director of the film festival Festival delle Terre and Assistant of the multimedia archive for the NGO Centro Internazionale Crocevia. In the south of Italy, she has worked as Tour Coordinator and Production Assistant and travelled with the Canadian theatre company Caravan Stage Company. She has worked as an administrative assistant at the Embassy of Italy in Ljubljana. At IPoP, she is involved in sustainable mobility projects.
Marko Peterlin, director
architect and urban planner
Marko has been initially trained at the University of Ljubljana, later he obtained a Master’s degree from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Barcelona. His previous work experiences include free-lance practice, work in the public administration, and academia. His work focuses on urban development policies. He also takes care of extensive collaboration with NGOs, public, and private institutions within a number of cooperation and applied research projects. He is the coordinator of a network of NGOs on urban and spatial development in Slovenia. In 2008 he led the drafting of documents for the Slovenian EU Presidency in the fields of territorial cohesion and urban development policies as an external expert. In the years 2009-2015 he was responsible for National Dissemination Point of the URBACT programme in Slovenia. He contributed to a number of studies for the European Commission.
Nina Plevnik, junior expert
geographer
Nina is finished her master’s degree at Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana. In her thesis, she is analysing the changes in transport as a result of the city’s participation in EU funded projects. As a student, she worked on mobility projects at Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia. To expand her horizons, she also did an internship at Transport Research Institute, Edinburgh Napier University. At IPoP she coodinates communication activities, helps with the activities of the National URBACT point and works on projects in the field of sustainable spatial and urban development.
Maja Simoneti, PhD, project manager
landscape architect and spatial planner
Maja is a licensed landscape architect and spatial planner. She used to work in spatial planning and landscape design for twenty years before she first joined IPoP in 2009. She is skilled in organisation and reconciliation within interdisciplinary working groups and public participation processes. Her main interests are participation, placemaking, sustainable urban development, green space planning and management and spatial literacy. She combines work in practice with research; her M. Phil. thesis was about involving users into public green space management. She is also a former president of the Association of Landscape Architects of Slovenia and had various roles within the Chamber for Architecture and Spatial Planning of Slovenia. She has won various prizes for her work in planning practice, in research and in publishing.
Karina Sirk, junior expert
sociologist
Karina has a master’s degree in Sociology. Her final assignments were about cohabitation communities and the value of home for elderlies. Her previous work experience includes work in public administration, non-governmental sector and education. For the last decade, she has been active in various European projects as a content and administration coordinator. At IPoP, she is currently working in the field of sustainable mobility.
Anja Slapničar, junior expert
urban planner
Anja Slapničar finished her urban planning studies at the Faculty of Architecture in Ljubljana. She spent one semester abroad at the Lodz University of Technology in Poland. In her Bachelor thesis, she dealt with cooperative housing and living in communities. She is currently analysing parking spaces and researching their shared use in Velenje as part of her master’s thesis. At IPoP she started as an intern in 2019 and has been involved in projects on sustainable mobility ever since.
Gaja Trbižan, junior expert
landscape architect
Gaja has more than 20 years of experience in landscape design and spatial planning. She is one of the co-founders Pazi!park, where she also works as a project manager. Her work focuses on designing quality public open spaces, sustainable development and urban resilience. She is particularly interested in involving children in the planning and design of innovative playscapes. She studied at the Faculty of Biotechnology at the University of Ljubljana and Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet in Sweden. Following her studies, she gained experience abroad, at the Turenscape Landscape Institute in China, and at home, at Studio AKKA and the Ljubljana Urban Planning Institute. As European projects manager at the Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana Urban Region, she worked on sustainable mobility, regional spatial planning, urban resilience and green infrastructure. She has received several awards and recognitions for her work.
Institute board
- Aidan Cerar, PhD (IPoP)
- Urška Kranjc (LUZ d.d.)
- Blaž Križnik, PhD (IPoP, GSUS HYU)
- Jernej Prijon (Prima Ljubljana d.o.o.)
- Maja Simoneti, PhD (IPoP)
- Peter Šenk, PhD (UM FG)
Advisory board
- Margita Jančič
- doc. dr. Alma Zavodnik Lamovšek (UL FGG)
- prof. dr. Elen Twrdy (UL FPP)
- doc. dr. Matjaž Uršič (UL FDV)