On Monday, June 19, 2023, prof. dr. Štefan Bojnec attended the public defence of the PhD thesis at the University of Vaasa, Finland, in the role of "opponent".

So far, he has participated as a committee member in the evaluation of 5 PhD dissertations at Vaasa University, Finland, and in 4 of them he has personally attended the public defence at Vaasa University, Finland, as an "openent". The Scandinavian system of public defence of doctoral dissertations fundamentally differs from ours in Slovenia. The public defence is conducted by means of a critical and evaluative examination, interview and discussion between the candidate and the "openent" who, as examiner, conducts the public defence in the presence of the "custos" and, usually, a large number of members of the public.

This year's defence was slightly different from the first three, in which he was the only "opponent", but now there were two. The public defence was a hybrid system: prof. dr. Štefan Bojnec was present in person and the professor from Poland was present remotely in the Zoom environment. It was also held in the atmosphere of the late prof. dr. Josu Takal, a professor at the local university, who was also the initial mentor of this year's candidate at the public defence. Many of us at the Faculty of Management of the University of Primorska remember prof. dr. Josu Takal as a long-standing member of the organising committee, participant of the MIC conference, and a frequent guest at our Faculty in Koper.