North Macedonia

Velika Stojkova Serafimovska is an ethnomusicologist, a researcher and UNESCO trained Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) facilitator. Her research focuses on sociological and anthropological perspectives on transitional processes in popular and traditional music and culture and in safeguarding and promoting the intangible cultural heritage on national and regional level. She has published widely on these topics in various multi-authored volumes including ICTM Yearbook of Traditional Music and Routledge publications. As an Associate Professor, she teaches courses on World music, Ethnomusicology and ICH on graduate and postgraduate (MA and PhD) level. As part of the Network of ICH experts in Southeastern Europe she is involved with projects that protect and promote intangible cultural heritage on national and international level participating in Erasmus+ and UNESCO projects. She was part of the team that inscribed all five Macedonian ICH elements on the UNESCO ICH RL, including two multinational nominations. She is part of the international ICTM network since 1999 and Chair of the ICTM Study Group on Music and Dance in Southeastern Europe, thus participating and organising different academic and artistic events on a regional level. She has participated in numerous international scholarly conferences, symposiums and meetings around the world. In the last ten years, she has also been involved in creating and implementing the national strategy and cultural policy on national level thus cooperating with the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of North Macedonia and other cultural stakeholders in the field of culture. As MP and part of the inter parliamentary Green group of the Parliament of the Republic of North Macedonia, she is also involved in the monitoring and implementation of the Green agenda, climate change and protecting natural heritage issues on national level.