17/04/2016
Kosovar Centre for Security Studies (KCSS), today, on 17th of April 2016, celebrates the eighth anniversary of its establishment. On this anniversary, KCSS team want to thank all partners, donors, associates, friends, media and the general audience for the continuous support and cooperation that served to the cultivation of our professional research work.
KCSS was founded on 17 April 2008. The motive for its establishment was preceded by the created circumstances after the Declaration of the Kosovo Independence and the need for establishing a professional research centre which will gather the most distinguished experts and researchers of the field. Furthermore, objectives of KCSS are research, monitoring and oversight of institutional consolidation of security policy in Kosovo, by serving as a professional alternative platform.
KCSS trajectory of development was fast, secure and self-sustaining. Since the initial period of its establishment, it succeeded to appear actively as one of the only specialized organizations in the field of security, through contributing to various processes such as state-building, compilation of specific research, drafting of legislation, contribution to the development of strategies and policies as well as capacity building. KCSS very quickly became the key actor in the shaping of public opinion by contributing to the democratization of the security sector, accountability and transparency. The KCSS research’s greatly serve the needs not only of the local and international policy makers but also for the local and international students.
Despite its role in the national level, KCSS has developed an important role in strengthening oversight of security sector in Western Balkans. It has managed to make it through the continuous participation in various platforms and consortiums composed of different homologues organisations from Western Balkans. It is worth mentioning the consortium entitled: “Capacity building of civil society in assessing and oversight of security sector reform in Western Balkans” which continued to serve as a linking bridge for building bilateral and multilateral cooperation between KCSS and other partner organisations in the region. KCSS was co-founder of the trilateral regional project entitled: “Security Research Forum: Prishtina-Belgrade-Tirana” which aimed to overall improve the Serbian-Albanian relations, in particularly the Kosovo-Serbian relations.
KCSS since November 2011 has been a member with full rights of a network of non-governmental organizations and research institutes which advocate the development policy of peace-building and security of the European Union (EU) called Liaison Office European Peace -The construction (EPLO). Also, by the end of 2015, KCSS is part of two research consortiums composed of research institutes and prominent universities from EU and beyond, supported by prestigious Horizon 2020 grant scheme.
Since 2015, through its outstanding work, KCSS has become one of the key global organizations in the prevention of violent extremism and deradicalisation. As a result, KCSS is already being considered as a credible partner by coalitions of organizations in the world which deal with the treatment of this phenomenon. The publication of the report inquiring into the “Causes and consequences of Kosovo citizens’ involvement as foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq" has crowned our professional level of research which continues to be evaluated in more advanced political circles of academia. KCSS continuously is being invited to major summits and conferences organized in the world which address this phenomenon. KCSS was the only organisation from Western Balkans which was invited to Obama's Summit on Preventing Violent Extremism, held in September 2015 in New York.
KCSS has published more than 70 publications which include reports, policy papers, policy briefs, books, and occasional papers dealing with security in local, regional and international level. KCSS has organized more than 150 conference/seminars, and has attended more than 250 conference/workshops/ discussions in regional and international level of security sector.
