LIRA supports the involvement of junior researchers in local and international research projects. Their involvement, in line with LIRA’s values, is not based on providing assistance to senior colleagues nor on performing administrative duties, but is rather directed towards developing competent, independent and responsible new members of the academic community.

Specifically, junior collaborators are equally involved in all stages of the research process:

• Literature search and review;
• Research design and planning;
• Collecting data with the use of most modern equipment;
• Research data analyses using available software and training to use new software packages;
• Presenting results at scientific and professional conferences;
• Publishing results in prestigious scientific journals, which we have especially encouraged in the past and which we will continue to do in the future.

We encourage junior researchers to apply for funding opportunities such as The Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia as well as the (European Research Council), either independently or with supervision.

LIRA members have been supervisors and co-supervisors of a large number of completed PhD theses. LIRA members are also currently supervising 15 ongoing PhD students. Much of the completed PhD work has been published in leading international journals, which speaks to the quality of the completed PhD Theses. If they wish, PhD students can write their thesis in English so that their research can also be evaluated by an international expert in the field. Also, we encourage LIRA PhD students that if they wish, instead of writing a classic PhD thesis, they can obtain their PhD certificate by publishing a set of papers that are thematically linked in leading international journals (we are in the process of updating the faculty guideline which would enable this and we are hoping for a fast and positive outcome).

Some of the junior collaborators and students supervised by LIRA members have received awards from the Katarina Marić foundation for best bachelor/master thesis in psychology in Serbia: Katarina Jovanović (supervisor: Iris Žeželj) in 2010, Nikola Milosavljević (supervisor: Iris Žeželj) and Marija Čolić (supervisor: Iris Žeželj) in 2016 and Katarina Vulić (co-supervisors Danka Purić and Jovana Bjekić) in 2018.

From 2009 to 2017 candidates supervised by LIRA members have regularly been shortlisted for this award (within the top five theses): Iris Žeželj (8 candidates), Goran Opačić (5 candidates), Goran Knežević (2 candidates) and Danka Purić (1 candidate), as well as LIRA member Danka Purić.

Researchers should be members of professional organizations (associations). Membership gives you the opportunity to participate in organization committees and vote at the elections for board members, and by doing this impact the organization’s development politics and vision. Being a member also makes you liable for discounts on conference fees. In some organizations, membership gives you access to electronic versions of journals published by this organization. Often, the associations organize summer schools, workshops and seminars – we invite you to follow the announcements!

The membership needs to be renewed annually (with the exception of ISSID where it is renewed biennially). In some associations students have the right to free membership (for example EAPA organizes free student enrollment once a year), while many associations have low fees for students and researchers from poorer countries (SPSSI, EASP, ISPP, WAPP, EAPP, EAPA, ISSID).

Professional organizations relevant for our collaborators:

• • International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP)
  • Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI)
  • European Association of Social Psychology (EASP)
  • World Association of Personality Psychology (WAPP)
  • International Society for the Study of Individual Differences (ISSID)
  • European Association of Personality Psychology (EAPP)
  • European Association of Psychological Assessment (AEPA)
  • Society for Ambulatory Assessment (SAA)

There are a number of conferences in the field of psychology of individual differences and social psychology, both in Serbia and abroad, at which our associates actively participate. At conferences you can get to know latest information in the field you are interested in and working in, because most commonly researchers present results of research still unpublished in scholarly journals. Also, conferences are a good opportunity to meet colleagues from different parts of the world and new potential collaborators. This is a precious experience that will make it possible for you to eventually become a member of organizing boards, scientific boards and scientific conference organizers.

We invite you to follow announcements for the listed conferences and plan your attendance:

• • • Empirical Studies in Psychology (EIP) – annual conference organized by Laboratory of experimental psychology and Institute of psychology at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade
    • Current Trends in Psychology (STUP) – biennial conference organized by the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad
    • Psychology days in Zadar – biennial conference organized by the Department of Psychology at University of Zadar
    • Rijeka’s Days of Experimental Psychology (REPSI) – biennial conference organized by the Department of Psychology at University of Rijeka (participation is free)
    • Ramiro and Zoran Bujas Days – biennial conference organized by the Department of Psychology at University of Zagreb
    • ISPP (International Society for Political Psychology) annual conference
    • EASP conference – conference of the European Association of Social Psychology organized every three years
    • European Conferences on Personality (ECP) – biennial European conference of the European Association of Personality Psychology (EAPP)
    • International Society for the Study of Individual Differences (ISSID) – biennial world conference of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences
    • World Association for Personality Psychology (WAPP) cconference – organized every three years
    • Psychonomics – annual conference of Psychonomics Society for general experimental psychology

At every conference students at every level of studies pay a lower fee. Also, at some conferences (for example ECP, ISSID, ISPP, EASP etc.), you can apply for a conference scholarship offered by that association which allows you to participate at the conference at minimal personal cost. Follow the announcements at official webpages of the organizations.
Also follow the website of Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia for scholarships for attending scientific conferences.

In the field of social, clinical and psychology of individual differences there is a number of so called flagship journals:

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Basic and Applied Social Psychology
Social Psychology
British Journal of Social Psychology
The Journal of Social Psychology
Journal of Research in Personality
Journal of Personality
European Journal of Personality
Behavior Research Methods
Journal of Personality Assessment
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Personality and Social Psychology Review
Personality and Individual Differences
Brain and Behavioral Sciences
Psychological Science
Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science
Current Directions in Psychological Science
Clinical Psychological Science
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Nature: Human Behavior
Psychological Bulletin
Psychological Review
Psychological Bulletin & Review
Assessment

This list is of course not exhaustive. When you assess journal quality, it can be helpful to look at:

Impact factor (although imperfect metrics, it is still a signal of quality)
Index in relevant bases (SCI, SSCI, WoS, PsycInfo, SCOPUS, DOAJ, PubMed, EBSCOhost)
Position at ScImago list
Presence and position at Kobson base of journals
Policy on open data (it is our stand that we should support journals with open access, especially the ones that do not charge neither authors nor readers – so called double open access)
Policy on transparency of research process (we also believe that we should support journals that hold to open science practice, and offer possibilities of submitting registered reports – the list of such journals is growing daily)

LIRA fosters a tradition of training young people abroad. We offer young associates to spend some time in relevant higher education institutions and research institutes with which we already have established collaboration, for example, Ulm University, Utrecht University, Leiden University, Konstanz University, University of Nicosia, and the University of Trieste.

We encourage associates to apply for funds to support their stay. The study abroad program is supported by the COST Action Short Term Research Mission programs, Erasmus and Erasmus plus programs, Borislav Lorenc fellowship from the Psychology department at Faculty of Philosophy, as well as by the travel grants of the European Association of Social Psychology. We are continuously working on further broadening of the network of collaboration and opening up new financing opportunities.

So far, our young associates have accomplished professional practice at partner institutions from Serbia and abroad. We work intensively with the Institute of Mental Health and the Special Hospital for Addiction Diseases, which are the teaching bases of the Faculty of Philosophy. Within the professional practice, supervised students take histories from patients, describe cases, form diagnoses, and discuss possible therapeutic approaches.

Students also have the opportunity to study in the field of forensic psychology in cooperation with the Forensic Laboratory of the Criminal Police of Belgrade, as well as to participate in research conducted at the Clinical Hospital Centre Bežanijska kosa. Young researchers can also enhance their skills in research agencies like Ipsos Strategic Marketing, EyeSee, and MASMI. If interested in applied research, they can participate in the activities of the Psychosocial Innovation Network (PIN), as well as UNICEF projects.

In recent years, LIRA collaborators have fostered a very intensive collaboration with the Institut für Psychologie und Pädagogik, Universität Ulm, Germany. Our young associates have so far been the main participants in the exchanges organized with the University of Ulm. We are planning to open other professional exchanges, notably with the ERCOMER Centre of the Utrecht University, Netherlands.

Students and associates of the Centre are encouraged to participate in student competitions such as Falling labs (organized by DAAD), EESTech Challenge (at Microsoft Development Centre in Belgrade), LabVIEW (at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade).

We encourage the participation of students and young researchers in the global Junior Researcher Programme (JRP) initiative. JRP supports six research projects in the field of psychology and behavioural science each year. Under this program, you can apply to become a young researcher or supervisor.

We also encourage student participation in international psychology student organizations, such as the European Federation of Psychology Students’ Associations (EFPSA). Within this organization, there are several initiatives in which students can participate, such as the annual congress, the annual cconference, and the summer school. Within this organization, we particularly highlight the student scholarly journal – Journal of European Psychology Students (JEPS), where students can submit their research papers as authors and may participate in the management of the journal.

The European Federation of Psychological Students’ Associations (EFPSA) is a European community serving to promote the quality of youth study, and our Stimulus Psychological Students Association is one of the EFPSA members. Besides JEPS (student scholarly journal that allows students to publish their work), EFPSA also engages in scientific exchanges within the Study and Travel Abroad team, as well as in the implementation of scientific projects within the Research Summer School and Research Program team. For more information, you can contact serbia@efpsa.org.

We also plan the participation of PhD and master students in an international project for collaborative replications of highly-cited studies in the field (Collaborative Replications and Education Projects, CREP). Within this program, Ljiljana Lazarević has so far been engaged as an executive reviewer and Iris Žeželj and Danka Purić as experts in student work evaluation.