Generations of Science Awards 2025

Marko Jevnikar: ZRC SAZU Blue Award

Head of technical staff, caretaker, maintenance guy, or building manager—no matter what one calls his job, there’s no denying that Marko Jevnikar has been performing it for many years with joy, dedication, and a strong sense of responsibility. His duties range from purchasing equipment to carrying out repairs, which he does himself or arranges outsourcing for. Marko performs his work with remarkable humbleness, almost invisibly. It is often only when he’s away that we can see how essential he is for the smooth operation of our institution. Due to his technical and professional excellence demonstrated through his work, his nomination for the ZRC SAZU Blue Award was supported by all the ZRC SAZU institutes and the Založba ZRC publishing house.

Sonja Stamenković: ZRC SAZU Blue Award

Sonja Stamenković has been making researchers’ work easier since the mid-1990s by carrying out various administrative tasks as the secretary of the ZRC SAZU Karst Research Institute. Whether managing project hours, filling out travel orders, or overseeing income and expenditure, she always performs her work with diligence and determination, while remaining friendly and respectful. She works with karst specialists from across the globe, and she is also excellent at explaining things to people that contact the institute with more general inquiries. Her friendly nature, professional excellence, and ingenuity make her a valuable colleague significantly contributing to the institute’s development into one of the most prominent international karst research and study centers. For all these reasons, Sonja is a deserving recipient of the ZRC SAZU Blue Award.

Dejan Gabrovšek: ZRC SAZU Silver Award

Dejan Gabrovšek earned his PhD with a dissertation examining Slovenian complex sentences in terms of various degrees of dependence. As a fresh contribution to linguistic scholarship, it provides new insights into the typology of Slovenian complex sentences, and it will also serve as a valuable basis for selected chapters of a forthcoming Slovenian grammar.

Through his work at the ZRC SAZU Fran Ramovš Institute of the Slovenian Language, Dejan has distinguished himself as a diligent and insightful researcher, well equipped to resolve complex linguistic problems. He contributes to the development of eSSKJ: Dictionary of Standard Slovenian, the Growing Dictionary of the Slovenian Language, and the Slovenian School Dictionary, while also actively participating in other departmental activities. He presents his findings in Slovenian and international journals dealing with Slovenian studies and linguistics, and at conferences. He has received the ZRC SAZU Silver Award because of the impact and significance of his doctoral dissertation.

Simona Kralj Fišer: ZRC SAZU Gold Award

At the ZRC SAZU Jovan Hadži Institute of Biology, Simona Kralj Fišer leads the basic research program Biodiversity: Patterns, Processes, Predictions, and Conservation, which supports long-term studies of biodiversity. These studies rely on integrative and interdisciplinary approaches incorporating state-of-the-art technology, including machine learning.

Simona leads the groundbreaking project Sex-Specific Maternal Effects: Methodological and Data Resources for Studying Extreme Sexual Size Dimorphism. By combining traditional and modern methods. such as controlled breeding, quantitative genetics, genomics, transcriptomics, epigenetics, and microbiology, she explores sex differences and sexual dimorphism in spiders. Under her leadership, one of the first reference genomes in Slovenian science is currently being developed. As part of this project, she not only introduces new content and methodologies, but also collaborates with experts in these areas in both Slovenia and abroad.

As a lecturer, Simona passes on her expertise to the next generation at the ZRC Graduate School, where she played a key role in designing and accrediting the master’s and doctoral programs. She also teaches at the University of Primorska, where her textbook Od genov do vedenja in naprej (From Genes to Behavior and Beyond) has recently been published.

Drago Perko: ZRC SAZU Researcher Emeritus

After earning his PhD on correlations between relief and population changes in Slovenia, Drago Perko found work at the ZRC SAZU Anton Melik Geographical Institute. There, he led the research program Slovenia’s Regional Geography and as well as various research projects exploring cultural landscapes, geographical micro-regionalization, common land in Slovenia, regional policy mechanisms, natural landscape types, and Slovenia’s landscape diversity and hotspots.

As the author of numerous research articles, he has primarily dealt with regional geography, geographic information systems, digital thematic cartography, and geographical names. He contributed to several seminal geographical and cartographic works on Slovenia, including Regionalnogeografska monografija Slovenije (A Monograph on Slovenia's Regional Geography), Krajevni leksikon Slovenije (Gazetteer of Slovenia), Geografski atlas Slovenije (Geographical Atlas of Slovenia), the first national atlas, and the digital map Relief Slovenije (Slovenia’s Relief).

Drago Perko has also been highly active as editor of research journals and book series. He is a member of the editorial board of Acta Geographica Slovenica, and since 1995 he has served on the Slovenian Government’s Commission for the Standardization of Geographical Names.

In recognition of his decades-long research excellence, twenty-five years of heading the Anton Melik Geographical Institute, and his committed and dedicated service to the advancement of geography, the humanities, and ZRC SAZU, Drago has been awarded the title ZRC SAZU Researcher Emeritus.