My name is Darko Polšek. I am 50 - a professor at Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia. I am also a Senior Researcher at the Insitute of Social Sciences in Zagreb (with a project on “Public assessment of science and education”). I graduated Philosophy and Sociology, made a Masters in Philosophy (Epistemology), and a PhD in Sociology of Science (on Edinburgh School in Sociology of Knowledge) – at the same University. This year I shall be teaching for 25 years. I started as a Sociology teacher at University of Zadar, Croatia. In 1990 I came back to Zagreb, to the Institute of Social Sciences, and in 1997, I received a tenure at the School of Law, Dept. of Sociology.

I spent the same year as a Fulbright scholar at Virginia Tech. Blacksburg (Center for Interdisciplinary Studies). From 2000-2002 I was appointed Deputy Minister of Science and Technology of the Republic of Croatia, with a responsibility for the higher education system. I drafted one of the Acts on Higher Educiation, which should have developed Croatian HE system according to the American one. At various meetings of the European Union, I managed to put Croatia on the map of the Bologna Process (2001).

In 2000-2001. I assisted Legislative Reform Program representatives of EU, and various EU groups for University assessment in Croatia. Since then, due to my papers on educational reform (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,), at various meetings (1, 2, 3, 4,) I was invited as a keynote speaker or contributed as an expert on Bologna Process (1).

In 2002 I got a scholarship for the University of Oxford – to St. Catherine’s College. In 2004. I was appointed to the High Level Expert Group of the European Commission in Brussels – on public assessment of converging technologies.

During my career, I was invited to several highly respected institutions and universities. To London School of Economics, to deliver a paper on Karl Popper; to the Central European University, where I organized a conference on Popper and Hayek (and participated at conferences there few more times), to the Salzburg Seminar (to the conference on public asessment of genetics), I delivered papers and lectures at the University of Uppsala (Sweden); in 2004 in Cambridge, I participated in discussions during the Anniversary of the Double Helix; in 2001 I was invited by the New America Foundation (Washington) to deliver a paper on globalization. In 2002. I was appointed to be the Coordinator of the Kelley Business School, Indiana State University, for their MBA program in Zagreb. In 1995. I was the Head of Croatian Branch the German liberal - Friedrich Naumann Foundation (during which I participated or managed various programs and conferences - in Sofia (Bulgaria), in Koenigswinter (Germany), in Sintra (Portugal) and elsewhere. Presently I am the President of the Department of Sociology, of the NGO Matrix Croatia (the biggest one in Croatia), was a member of the Presidency of Philosophical Association, as well as the Sociological Association of Croatia. I was the joint-editor of various domestic sociological and educational journals. I am a course-director of the Sociology of Science seminar at Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik (Croatia), for eight years now. I received an OEAD grant for research at Karl Franzens University in Graz (Austria) in 1991.; and a DAAD – grant for the Summer School in Heidelberg (Germany) in 1982.

Teaching achievements

Apart from the post at the Philosophical Faculty and the research position at the Institute for Social Sciences, I used to teach at the School of Law (General Sociology), Croatian Studies (Sociobiology), all at University of Zagreb; and at Zagreb Management School (Course: General Sociology), and at Community College Zapresic (Course: Sociology of Culture). From 1984-1990 I taught Sociology of Knowledge at the University of Zadar. In early ´90s I used to teach at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering (C: Sociology) and Academy of Music (C: Sociology of Culture).

Scholarly achievements

I wrote eight books (see details and reviews), and jointly or personally edited, published and co-authored another seven (see details at the same link), unfortunately all, save one, in Croatian. The first one was on Epistemology of Nicolai Hartmann Aporia of Reality (1985), the second on Edinburgh School of the Sociology of Science, The Fifth Kant’s Antinomy (1994). Then, in 1995 I published a book Birth of the Nation (a collection of 52 Radio Lectures delivered for the Croatian National Radio). A monography on Karl Popper – Fallacies and Refutations was published in 1999. (All the mentioned books are available at Library of Congress, Washington). The following three books are called Dispatches from the Third Culture (2003); Destiny of the Wellborn. Eugenic Tradition in the Age of Genetic Technology (2004) – perhaps my major achievement for which I collected materials since 1997 while I was in the US. The last two are again collections of various essays, political ones in the World Empire and its Enemies, and Widows and Orphans (mostly cultural).

From the books I edited, let me mention Sociobiology (1995), a collection of translations by American and British sociobiologists and philosophers of science; a similar but far broader one was published in 2004 (jointly with J. Hrgovic) – Evolution of Sociality; in 1996. I edited the text collection on Edinburgh School in Sociology of Science; in 1999 I edited the book Visible and Invisible Academe on scientometry and peer-review. In 2000 (jointly with K. Pavelic) a collection Public Asessment of Genetic Technology was published, (see:) and in 2004 (jointly with several other scholars) I edited a collection Knowledge-based Society: A Challenge for EU Accession Countries.

I translated several books and a number of articles from English and German into Croatian: books by Oliver Sacks, Gerd Gigerenzer, Terry Eagleton, Thomas Friedman, Desmond Morris, Karl Popper and Viktor Zaslavsky.

My main expertise and academic interests are in philosophical and sociological issues concerning biology (sociobiology, Darwinism, social issues dealing with genetics) as well as on public assessment of science. But I flatter myself to be rather knowledgeable and well trained in other issues – such as in politology and arts (visual and literary).

I speak English and German fluently, and I read French.