Zaira Vidau is employed at the Slovene Research Institute SLORI in Trieste as a researcher and project manager, where she is also the President of the Scientific Committee. She has a PH.D. in Political Science and Ethnic Studies from the Faculty for Social Sciences at the University in Ljubljana. Her major fields of interest are: rights and political participation of national and linguistic minorities in Italy and Europe with special focus on the Slovene national community in Italy; public use of minority and regional languages and diversity management in public administration of multilingual and multicultural areas with special attention to the public use of Slovene, Friulian and German languages in Friuli Venezia Giulia Region; nationalisms and nation states; intercultural education and communication; youth participation and associations among the Slovene national community in Italy.
