- Paula-Mariana BEUDEAN, Public Administration and Management Department, ”Babeș-Bolyai” University, Romania, beudean@fspac.ro
Paula Beudean has been working with the Department of Public Administration & Management, "Babeș-Bolay” University, as an NGO practitioner, delivering courses, at the graduate and undergraduate levels, on NGO Management, Fundraising in NGOs, Volunteering Marketing, Advocacy and Lobby for NGOs since 2008. Her research focuses on NGO Leadership, NGOs’ readiness for innovation and digital transformation, NGOs and business cooperation, NGOs and their involvement in education services, etc. Paula has 15 years of experience in the non-profit sector, working in Romania and abroad. Currently, she works with an NGO in Romania and another one in Norway, as a project manager, grant manager and facilitator/trainer. Her NGO expertise is in fundraising, CSR, PR, design thinking, storytelling, media literacy, entrepreneurship, financial education, community development, and child protection.- Mária Murray Svidroňová, Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, maria.murraysvidronova@umb.sk
Murray Svidroňová is an Associate Professor of Public Economy and Services at the Faculty of Economics, Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. Her pedagogical and research activities are focused on the economics and management of the third sector, public and private nonprofit organizations, civil society and CSOs. She is particularly interested in social innovation issues in the area of public service provision, e.g. through co-creation, community building, and civic activism. She is active in several international studies and research projects dealing with public service innovation and civic engagement. In cooperation with the Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Government for the Development of Civil Society, she participated in the preparation of legislative changes in the field of financing NGOs. She runs her own civic association. She was the chairperson of the Mayor's Council of Banská Bystrica for non-governmental organizations (2015 – 2019). She is a member of the Accreditation Commission of the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic for Specialized Activities in the field of youth work.- Iga Jeziorska, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary, iga.jeziorska@sin.org.pl
Jeziorska is a PhD student in the Doctoral School of Political Science at Corvinus University of Budapest. Her main research areas include non-governmental organisations and their involvement in policy-making and public service delivery, especially in the area of drug policy. She has been actively involved in the third sector since 2011. She is a member of the Board of Advisors and a coordinator of the international network Youth Organisations for Drug Action. Since July 2018 she has been serving as a Chair of the Working Group on EU Drug Strategy and Action Plan in the Civil Society Forum on Drugs - an advisory body to the European Commission.Working Group 8: Non-Governmental Organizations in Central and Eastern Europe held one session at the 2023 Belgrade conference of NISPAcee, hearing three papers presented by three authors. All papers contributed to the understanding of the role and performance of NGOs in the region in regard to providing social services, contributing to digitalization, and the research community.
In total, 6 papers were submitted and accepted to be presented at the conference, in our working group. However, only four papers were registered in the end for the conference, and three papers were presented (one participant, who registered for the conference, had their flight canceled and was not able to attend the event in the end).
This year, the work in our group included mostly country-case papers, with papers focused on diverse NGO challenges and dynamic or civic participation in Slovenia and Hungary, while two papers also provided a European perspective. Thematically, we have discussed about:
- Civil society organizations as health and social care providers: Overview of challenges and needs of harm reduction services in European cities;
- Current situation of scientific societies in administrative sciences in Central and Eastern Europe (with a special focus on Hungary);
- Advocacy of NGOs in the formulation of policies and implementation of digital transformation projects in the field of information society development.
With respect to the methodological approaches, a variance was noticeable between papers. In other words, in some of them, the methodology used was very sound, while in others, there was some room for improvement. All authors have put a lot of effort and energy into their work.