Borna Mažar and Ivan Nađ, assistants at the Department of Demography and Croatian Emigration, participated in the international scientific conference Sustainable Development and Other Paradigms and Concepts in the Context of Contemporary Civilization Trends – Global and Local Dimensions, held on 10 and 11 September 2026 at the University of Łódź in Poland. At the conference, they presented a paper entitled Population Ageing and Mortality Forecasting in Croatia: Implications for Sustainable Development, in which they presented part of the research findings obtained within the MORTLAB – Mortality Trends and Projections as Determinants of Labour Market Sustainability project, conducted under the leadership of and in collaboration with Associate Professor Monika Komušanac.

The conference focused on contemporary development challenges and the role of sustainable development in shaping urban, regional and global policies. In addition to sustainable development and alternative development paradigms, the programme addressed topics such as the resilience of cities and socio-economic systems, climate change, the green transition, population well-being, and the application of data and artificial intelligence in decision-making processes. The conference was organised in cooperation with European universities within UNIC (The European University of Cities in Post-Industrial Transition) as part of the Sustainability & Green Cities thematic area.

Participation in the conference provided an opportunity to present demographic research conducted at the Faculty of Croatian Studies within an international academic environment and to link questions of mortality and population ageing with current challenges of sustainable development. It also helped lay the groundwork for potential future international collaboration with researchers from other universities.