Contact:
Barbara Lovrinić Higgins
+385 1 487 7460
barbara.lovrinic.higgins@irmo.hr
Bibliography:
Croatian scientific bibliography
Job title: Research assistant
Dr. Barbara Lovrinić Higgins has been working as a Research Assistant at the Department for Culture and Communication since 2018. From 2016 to 2017, she completed an internship at the Department and worked as an external associate. In 2025, she earned her PhD from the interdisciplinary doctoral program in Culture and Media Management at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. Her dissertation focused on the digitization of cultural heritage in the EU, titled: “Re-Working Cultural Memory and Heritage in the Digital Age: Cultural Policies for LAM Institutions from the EU Perspective.”
Her academic background also includes a postgraduate interdisciplinary degree in Diplomacy and International Relations from the University of Zagreb (2019), and Master’s degree in French Language and Literature, as well as Museology and Heritage Management, from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb (2013).
Her primary research interests focus on cultural policies, the digitization of cultural heritage, cultural memory, and digital humanities.
She actively collaborates on IRMO’s national and European research projects: Rapids and Backwaters. Adapting Fast and Slow to a Digital Cultural Turn (2020 – 2023), SoPHIA – Social Platform for Holistic Heritage Impact Assessment (2020–2021, Horizon 2020); CULPOL – EU Competences and National Cultural Policies: Critical Dialogues (2016–2018, Jean Monnet Project); EULEAD – Learning by Doing: EU Standards in the Balkans (2018–2019, Jean Monnet Project); CULTDEV – Cultural, Communication and Media Aspects of Contemporary Social Processes: Towards Sustainable Cultural Development (2019–2023); CULTMED – Interdisciplinary Research on Cultural and Media Policies and Practices: Developmental and Democratic Potentials (2024–2027). In 2022, she was an external collaborator for the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media study “Overview of cultural development and cultural policies in the Republic of Croatia,” researching issues concerning the digital transformation of the cultural sector.
She publishes her research results in scholarly books and journals across Croatia and EU on the topics of digital transformation in the cultural sector and digital cultural policies. She is actively involved in the DARIAH-HR national consortium, the ICARUS-HR consortium, and the Europeana network.
In addition to her research, she has contributed to the development of IRMO’s scholarly journal, CIRR – Croatian International Relations Review (indexed in Scopus), where she served as the Assistant Editor-in-Chief from 2017 to 2020. Prior to joining the Department for Culture and Communication, she gained expertise in multilateral institutional relations through her professional experience at the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg.