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Mateja Šmid Hribar, PhD, Asst. Prof.
Research Associate

+386 1 470 63 52

mateja.smid@zrc-sazu.si


Identifiers:
ORCID SICRIS Scopus

Mateja Šmid Hribar is a geographer and research associate at the Anton Melik Geographical Institute ZRC SAZU. She obtained her master’s degree in natural heritage preservation from the University of Ljubljana (2008) and her PhD in geography from the University of Primorska (2015). Her research focuses on the relationship between people and nature, with particular attention to cultural landscapes and the effects of their changes in connection with community-based natural resource management and ecosystem services. She is a member of the Institute’s Scientific Councils and a lecturer at the ZRC Postgraduate School.

As a visiting scholar she improved her skills at the Center for Behavior, Institutions and the Environment (CBIE) at Arizona State University (2015), the University of Florida (2019), the University of Bern (2024), and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (2025).


Mateja Šmid Hribar is a researcher in the fields of geography and sociology. She studies the interaction between people and nature and examines the ecological and social dimensions of cultural landscapes. Her work focuses on how people and communities, such as agrarian and grazing communities, shape, transform, and co-create cultural landscapes; how these landscapes in turn affect quality of life and natural processes; and what role communities play in natural resource management and adaptation to environmental challenges. In her research, she uses participatory approaches, interviews, focus groups, and field visits, which she combines with quantitative analyses.

Among her more notable achievements are publications in international journals in the fields of cultural landscapes, community-based natural resource management, and ecosystem services, as well as editorial work on two special issues of the international journal Acta Geographica Slovenica, devoted to the role of the commons in preserving cultural landscapes (2023) and in contributing to ecosystem services (2025). She led a targeted research project on the identification, evaluation, and mapping of ecosystem services, and also led the ZRC SAZU team in several international projects in the fields of cultural valuation of biodiversity, ecosystem services, sustainable land use, and cultural landscapes.

Her future research goals are directed toward examining the effects of land-use change on the processes and ecosystem services (benefits) of cultural landscapes, as well as toward understanding how community-based management can contribute to the maintenance of cultural landscapes, human well-being, and strengthening communityr to environmental challenges.

Teaching
  • ZRC Postgraduate School: Doctoral programmes Comparative Study of Ideas and Cultures (Human Geography)
  • New University, Faculty of Slovenian and International Studies
  • PhD supervisor (2024- ): Elizabeta Vršnik
Awards and recognitions
  • 2019: Diploma of Excellence for the Black Sea – Danubian Social & Economic Innovator, under the aegis of the European Commission – DG MARE (with coauthors in the INTERREG Danube AgriGo4Cities project)
  • 2017: Acknowledgment for involvement of the village Kosovelje in a research project and for encouragement and productive cooperation with its residents
  • 2015: First place award for “The Interpretation Polygon as a Tool for Understanding the Cultural Landscape, e-CLIC international contest for landscapes (with coauthors Aleš Smrekar and Jernej Tiran)
  • 2015: Special mention from the jury at the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / European Nostra Award 2015, Europa Nostra (with coauthors David Bole, Primož Pipan, Špela Ledinek Lozej, and Jani Kozina)
  • 2006: First prize for the research poster “End-Users and Their Impact on Digital Repositories” at the LIDA conference – Libraries in the Digital Age
Professional memberships
  • Member of the GIAM ZRC SAZU Scientific Council
  • Member of editorial board of scientific journal Acta geographica Slovenica (2020‒)
  • Member of Editorial Board of Book Series Geography of Slovenia and Georitem
  • Member of the Ecosystem Services Partnership - ESP and national representative of Slovene National network
  • Member of the International Association for the Study of the Commons - IASC
  • Board member of the EUCALAND network - European Cultural and Agricultural Landscapes (2019‒)
  • Member of the Partnership for safeguarding and popularization of dry stone wall in Karst
Section
Department of Human Geography
Keywords
community-based management
commons
local community resilience
cultural landscapes
land-use change
ecosystem services
environmental challenges

Links
Research gate
Project SHARED GREEN DEAL
Project SELINA
Project Identification, assessment and mapping of ecosystem services in valuabl…
Project ECOVINEGOALS