Since 2019, the OSCE Presence in Albania and Tirana University's Law Faculty have worked intensively on the establishment of a Master's Programme in Criminology with the aim to enhance the research capacities of criminal justice professionals, academics and policy makers in preventing and combating crime in Albania in line with human rights standards and OSCE commitments. Launched in December 2020, the Master's Programme aims to enhance the research capacities of professionals, academics, and policymakers to better understand and combat crime in line with human rights standards.
On 12 December 2024, the Presence and Tirana University hosted a closing ceremony, bringing together around 100 academic staff, students and donors to reflect on the project's achievements and its ongoing impact.
The Master's Programme in Criminology is the first Executive Master Programme in Albania included in the third cycle of studies. It offers an integrated curriculum designed for various career paths in the justice system. The programme covers key criminology topics, including crime prevention, offender rehabilitation and the root causes of crime. So far, 190 students have enrolled in the Master's Programme - 52 of them have already graduated. Participants come from diverse backgrounds, mostly from law enforcement agencies. They include judges, prosecutors, judicial police officers, police officers, defence lawyers, Security Academy lecturers, staff of parliament's policy office, civil society activists and criminal justice experts.
A major achievement of the project is the establishment of a Research Centre in Criminology, which will strengthen academic and research connections, and contribute in guiding criminal justice policy in Albania. The project contributed in setting up the infrastructure and provided the Research Centre with office and IT equipment. To fully support the capacities of the Research Centre, the project facilitated 30 research papers in the field of criminology to be used by academic staff and Master's students.
Following more than five years of intensive work, the OSCE's involvement entailed the development of the structure and curricula for the Master's Programme, training academic staff, building links with partner institutions, as well as building capacities and resources of the University of Tirana to deliver and manage such a complex, and ultimately successful programme.
Key milestones of the project include:
• Establishing a comprehensive criminology curriculum with 20 modules and 120 ECTS credits.
• Training academic staff and facilitating exchange opportunities with prestigious international universities.
• Providing essential research resources, including online access to international libraries.
• Organizing academic conferences and establishing a fellowship programme to support research in the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Interior.
• Supporting Master's students with research, publications, summer schools and exchange programmes and visiting lecturers.
Criminology careers are instrumental in establishing a more equitable, science-based understanding of crime, public policy and social justice. Through theoretical knowledge and practical experience, criminologists support and strengthen the work of law enforcement, and the court and penal systems. Therefore, this project contributed also to strengthen co-operation between the academia and law practitioners. The Project supported an increased co-operation between academia and law enforcement agencies, thus how research could contribute to practitioners' work, which was also one of the aims of the project. Through this co-operation, the academia explores the hands-on experience of the practitioners and their needs, and on the other hand the practitioners get academic knowledge on upcoming research. The research process is closely connected with practice, thus the need for links between both fields is by default necessary.
The project "Establishing a Master's Programme in Criminology" was implemented by the OSCE Presence in close co-operation with the Law Faculty and with the support of the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Interior. It was financially supported by the U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Mission to the OSCE, British Embassy in Tirana and the government of Italy.
