In the 2024/2025 academic year, Ms Inga Zelena-Bauer from the Centre for Eastern European Law applied for a mobility grant under the ‘Central European Exchange Programme for University Studies’ (CEEPUS), which offers students, researchers and teaching staff with eligible networks for research or teaching activities at partner universities abroad in Europe. Following the submission of her application documents, including a list of academic publications, Ms Inga Zelena-Bauer was nominated in autumn 2024 as a ‘Freemover’ candidate from Austria for the CEEPUS III grant by the host country, the Republic of Moldova. In the entire history of the CEEPUS programme, Ms Zelena-Bauer is the first representative of the University of Graz to be awarded this scholarship to carry out research in Moldova.
From 30 August to 30 September 2025, Ms Zelena-Bauer visited Chișinău and carried out her research tasks at the host institution, the ‘State University of Moldova’, in accordance with her study and research plan. As her research focuses on the legal characteristics of selected ombudsman institutions, she visited the Ombudsman’s Office in the Republic of Moldova on 23 September 2025 (for the whole day) to learn more about the structure of the institution and the activities of its various directorates (departments). On the recommendation of Professor Rodica Ciobanu, her supervisor at the host institution and Head of the Chair of Public Law at the Faculty of Law of the State University of Moldova, following a review of specialist literature in two university reading rooms, Ms Zelena-Bauer visited the National Library of the Republic of Moldova, which houses the Pro-European Centre, complete with its own library dedicated to Europeanisation.
The short research visit to Moldova as part of the CEEPUS mobility programme not only provided an excellent opportunity to make some progress in her own research based on first-hand country-specific literature and practical experience of the national ombudsman’s office in Moldova, but also to establish new contacts with colleagues from the Faculty of Law at the State University of Moldova, which could contribute to developing the potential for future cooperation between the University of Graz and the State University of Moldova.