IAMO's Southeast Europe Research Group examines agricultural production, rural development, and environmental change in Southeast Europe with a particular focus on the six Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia).

We are a cross-departmental and interdisciplinary research group with close links to scientists, practitioners, and decision-makers from the region. Our research interests concentrate on the following fields:

• Agricultural and rural development policy
• Demographic changes, migration, and rural wellbeing
• Coordination and competition processes along the agricultural and food value chains
• Innovation and digitalization processes in the agriculture and food industry
• Environmental impacts of agriculture and adaptation to environmental change

Our aspiration is excellence. We actively engage in knowledge transfer and capacity building to achieve our aim of societal and policy impact. We apply state-of-the-art quantitative and qualitative techniques, exploit secondary data sources, and conduct fieldwork and primary data collections. We publish our findings in renowned international journals and seek engagement with the scientific community in workshops, seminars, and conferences.

The activities of the Western Balkans Research Group follow the guidelines of Good Scientific Practice by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Leibniz Association concerning professional standards, intellectual property, and transparent research data management.