The institute for Balkan studies at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts was founded in 1969. It draws on the tradition of the Balkan institute which existed in 1934-1941. The institute is involved in acomplex study of the Balkan peninsula, from pre-historic to modern times, covering archaeology, anthropology, ethnography, history, study of culture, art, literature, common law, etc. This multidisciplinary approach forms a continuous scientific tradition of this institute. Between 2006 and 2010, the institute implemented six projects with the participation of fifty two researchers in cooperation with other foreign scientific institutions,
including the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. the projects include: the history of political ideas in the Balkan peninsula; common cultural heritage of the Balkan and the Danube regions; medieval cultural and sacral heritage of the Balkan; ethnic and social stratification of the Balkan; traditional culture of the Serbs in the Slavic and Balkan contexts; the archaeological heritage of the Balkan in the broader context of proto-historical and historical processes. Besides the traditional multidisciplinary approach to realization of the above mentioned projects, different methods of field research, archival and library research are used.