Assistant Professor Dražen Cepić, Ph.D., Sociology

Sustainable fishing: Social Relations, Identity and Co-management of Adriatic Fishery Resources

Dražen’s main research area revolves around Adriatic fisheries, natural resources management and blue growth. His postdoctoral research at the University of Birmingham, focused on fisheries on Lake Victoria in east Africa, inspired him to research fisheries in Croatia. Since 2021, he has acted as the principal investigator on a five-year project on sustainable fishing, where he leads an interdisciplinary team of scientists with diverse methodological approaches from the fields of sociology, ethnology, anthropology, marine biology, agronomy, and others.

He emphasizes the significance international involvement and networking have had for his work and development. He was selected as the Action Chair for a project focused on the blue economy through a competitive COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) competition. The blue economy serves as a framework for sustainable maritime economic activities and new sea-based technologies. As part of this project, he will advocate for tackling issues such as overfishing, climate change, and plastic pollution.

The platform is directed towards scientists whose research promotes the sharing of knowledge within the scientific community through the writing of collaborative articles. It also enables short-term traveling, simplifying access to research centers and encouraging the sharing of ideas.

The Department of Sociology at the University of Zadar, established in 1976 as part of the former Faculty of Philosophy, is a research-oriented university unit. It is dedicated to societal development and addressing the challenges faced by the local community. The department’s strategic focus and orientation also include the development and strengthening of the international scientific network in the field of maritime sociology, initially represented by joining the Social Science and the Sea (SSASEA) network and organizing the professional conference ‘Sociology at Sea: Culture, Economy, and Society in a Maritime Perspective’ in 2013. The department’s work, as well as Professor Cepić’s personal involvement, are characterised by actively involving doctoral students in scientific projects.

For the Sustainable Fisheries project, a team of scientists created a questionnaire to evaluate certain characteristics of the respondents. This questionnaire explored the fishermen’s values, their working conditions, knowledge transfer between generations, attribution of guilt between different fishing sectors, and the potential for a collective resource management model. The questionnaire was conducted by an autonomous research agency. Upon collecting the necessary data, the research results were analysed in the form of written documents and presented to the broader scientific community through guest lectures and presentations at scientific conferences, and publication of scientific papers. The final research outcomes inform the creation of proposals and guidelines aimed at influencing public policy through policy briefs. A key aspect of this process is the participatory involvement of stakeholders, who contribute to the development of these guidelines during workshops.

Development of aforementioned research project ‘Sustainable Fishing: Social Relations, Identity and Co-management of Adriatic Fishery Resources’ is one of Dražen’s key projects. The research examines various social aspects of fisheries: from the attitudes and values of professional fishermen and recreational anglers, to aquaculture explored through the lens of social licensing and the impact of fish farming on local communities. It also analyses value chains among different stakeholders in the trade of marine organisms, from primary extractors to final consumers (fishermen — middlemen — traders — processors — restaurateurs — consumers).