Former President Borut Pahor is entering academia. He has been appointed head of a new chair at a Nova Gorica-based private university that will focus on the Slovenian national programme.

New University, which was established in 2017, formed the new chair in June as an internal organisational unit that it says will not run any study programme itself. Rather, it will be primarily dedicated to discussion and research.

Pahor will convene the inaugural meeting of the chair in September, the university told the Slovenian Press Agency.

Apart from Pahor, the founding members of the chair include the university's Rector Peter Jambrek, who is a former Constitutional Court judge, as well as Dimitrij Rupel, a former long-serving foreign minister, and former Constitutional Court judge Ernest Petrič.

Other founding members include Tadej Bajd, a former president of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Boštjan Žekš, who served as minister for Slovenians Abroad, and jurist Matej Avbelj.

"The chair will pay special attention and care to the implementation and development of study programmes in Slovenian studies at the undergraduate, master's and doctoral levels," the university said, noting that Pahor had assumed patronage of this programme during his presidential term.

The members and associates of the chair will dedicate most of their time to discussions and research on the Slovenian national programme, following the example of the articles published in 1987 in the landmark 57th volume of the literary journal Nova Revija that became a manifesto of Slovenia's independence. They will also explore a constitutional framework for Slovenia as an EU member state.

New University, which awarded an honorary doctorate to Pahor in 2022, would like the former president and prime minister to respond to invitations from students and professors, as well as from the wider Slovenian and international circles, to give occasional lectures on topics of academic and public importance.

Pahor served as Slovenia's president for two terms from December 2012 to December 2022. He led the Social Democrats from 1997 to 2012 and served as prime minister from November 2008 to February 2012. He also served one term as MEP in 2004-2008 as a member of the Socialist group.