University of Zagreb Faculty of Agriculture (FAZ)

Team

Marija Cerjak, PhD, (female), AgriFoodBoost Project Coordinator, a full professor at the Department of Marketing in Agriculture, FAZ, with 20 years of working experience. She has been advisor of more than 45 Master students and 2 PhD students. Her main areas of research are agricultural marketing and food consumer behaviour. She is the author of more than 50 journal papers in the field. She was involved in several funded professional and research projects, both national and European (H2020, VI and VII frameworks, TEMPUS, INTERREG) dealing with agro-food marketing, farmers cooperation, traditional agro-food products, organic food products. Since 2000 she has served as a reviewer for international journals and conferences and since 2010 as a reviewer of national and EU research and development projects. She has been Associate Editor of British Food Journal, Economia Agro-Alimentare and Agriculturae Conspectus Scientificus. Since 2018 she is a president of Croatian Society of Agricultural Economists. She is married and a mother of three children.

Josip Juračak, PhD (male), is an assistant professor in the Department of Management and Rural Entrepreneurship. He has the PhD degree in agri-economics and the master degree in organisation and management. He also holds the MBA degree in agribusiness and commerce. During his work at FAZ he has been the faculty vice dean for 6 years. In his career, he participated in several national and international scientific and applied projects as an expert in the field of farm management and farm economics, as well as in rural development. Josip Juračak also coordinated the Tempus AHEAD project. As a member of the National Rural Development Council he was actively involved in rural development programming for Croatia 2014- 2020. Josip Juračak is is a member of the AGRIMBA (ICA) Executive Board. In the period 2016-2018 he was engaged by the Croatian Ministry of Agriculture to lead the National Committee for Making of the Croatian Strategic Guidelines for Agriculture and Food Industry 2017-2027.

Damir Kovačić, PhD (male) works as a full professor at the Department of Marketing in Agriculture at University of Zagreb Faculty of Agriculture (FAZ), where he teaches marketing in agriculture, direct sales of agricultural products and market research. During his work at FAZ he was involved in more than 20 different professional and research projects dealing with agri-food markets, farmers cooperation, traditional agri-food products, sensory studies, education in the field of agriculture. He is the author of more than 20 papers published in journals with international reviewers. During his career, he has collaborated with experts from Croatian Government, experts from World Bank and FAO.

Željka Mesić, (female) Assistant Professor Dr. Željka Mesić works at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Marketing in Agriculture. Her recent work is oriented towards market analysis, consumer research and supply chain analysis. During her work at FAZ she was involved in different professional and research projects dealing with agri-food markets, farmers cooperation, traditional agri-food products, education in the field of agriculture (AGRIPOLICY, FP7 211760; CEEC Agri-Policy FP6 513705; AGRITRAINING INTERREG III A –2005-0017-634005; AgMRC-Croatia financed by USAID). During her career, she studied at many foreign universities (Università degli Studi di Firenze, 2018, Szent Istvan University, Budapest, 2018, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering at Ghent University, 2014, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, 2014, Montana State University, USA, (bilateral mobility programme, 2012), Universitat fur Bodenkultur (BOKU), Institute of Agricultural Economics, Vienna, Austria (2007, 2012, 2018, Ceepus scholarship). She is member of The European Association of Agricultural Economists – EAAE, The Agricultural Economics Society – AES, HAED-Croatian association of agricultural economists.

Branka Šakić Bobić, PhD (female) assistant professor with 16 years of experience in the field of management and rural entrepreneurship, holds PhD in agricultural economics that focuses on developing a business model for decision making and MBA degree in agribusiness and commerce. She participated at several scientific and professional workshops and seminars in Croatia and abroad where she improved her skills and knowledge in the field of management, business, marketing and strategic planning, use of accounting systems (FADN) for management purposes, use of modern decision support methods, clustering and EU project management. Her area of interest are costs and calculations, project and financial management, local initiatives and networking and business decision-making in agribusiness. She has been active in several national and international scientific and applied projects, as well as in teaching at undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate MBA studies. She is the author of more than 20 scientific papers published in journals with international reviewers and more than 80 professional

Vesna Očić, PhD (female) was born 1977. in Zagreb and graduated in 2002. on the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb. Since 2003. she has been employed at the Department of Management and Rural Entrepreneurship in the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb, first as a research assistant, and after 2016. as assistant professor. She was going on a scientific training in Montana State University, Bozeman, USA, and Wageningen UR Centre for Development Innovation, Netherlands, where she has been improving in the area of quality teaching and education as well as value chain analysis in fresh fruit and vegetable sector. A member of the Croatian Agro-Economic Association (HAED) since 2008. Research areas that deals with is costs and calculations in agriculture, accounting and farm accountancy data network in Croatia, financial management in agribusiness and farm management.

Marina Tomić Maksan, PhD (female) is a postdoctoral researcher at Department of Agricultural Marketing at University of Zagreb Faculty of Agriculture. Dr. Tomić Maksan had been working on several EU and Associated with document Ref. Ares(2020)2990388 – 09/06/2020 [952303] [AgriFoodBoost] – Part B – [28] national projects, including Horizon2020 project. Her main research interests are food marketing and consumer behaviour. She has published several papers in scientific journals including Appetite, British Food Journal, New Medit etc. Dr. Tomić Maksan is in editorial board of Journal of Food Products Marketing and a regular reviewer for many field journals like British Food Journal, International Journal of Consumer Studies, Journal of Central European Agriculture etc.

Tajana Čop (female) is an early-stage researcher (PhD student), assistant in the Department of Management and Rural Entrepreneurship. Her field of interest is management and entrepreneurship in agribusiness, and risk management. As an assistant she participate in the teaching activities on the subjects: Risk Management in Agriculture, Strategic Management in Agribusiness (MS study programme Agribusiness and Rural Development), Environmental Risk Analysis and Management (MS study programme Environment, agriculture and resource management on English language), Management and Entrepreneurship in Agriculture and Microeconomics (BS study programme Agricultural Economics). Currently, she is a Ph.D. student of Agricultural Sciences. She works on a Ph.D. thesis in the area of climate change impact and risk management in agriculture. Main research interests through Ph.D. thesis are vine growers and wine producers’ preferences according to innovative risk management strategy.

Mateja Pećina (female) junior researcher (PhD student), worked as an expert associate at the Department of Microbiology in 2016, before she started to work as an assistant at the Department of Animal Science and Technology in 2017. Her areas of interest are genetic and sensory analysis of meat and milk products. She has good communication and organizational skills and experience of work in the laboratory while preparing culture media, isolation of bacteria on selective medium then purification to monoculture, DNA isolation from different animal samples as well as preparing samples for PCR, sequencing, electrophoresis, and visualisation from said samples. Participation in the preparation of materials for teaching as well as organizing the work of large group of students in the laboratory helped her in having experience in planning, making decisions, and organizing fellow teammates all acquired during graduation work and professional practice.

Kristijan Bilić (male) MSc, in Agricultural Economics specialization. He worked as Assistant at the Department of Marketing in Agriculture at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Agriculture. Main areas of interests are digital marketing, sales and event organization. He was a collaborator in the implementation of the international project Drivers of innovation and upgrading in quality differentiated products. He has three years of experience as a marketing and sales manager, where he has worked in market research, customer relationship management, sales and media and web advertising management. Kristijan is a member of Croatian Society of Agricultural Economists (HAED). Spends his leisure time as DJ and event organizer.