An Interview with Prof. Danijela Ćirić Lalić, Head of Project Management Studies, University of Novi Sad
From theory to Tuesday morning
Danijela Ćirić Lalić has a particular gift for cutting through abstraction. As Head of the Project Management Study Module at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, and a trainer at the European Academy delivering EU-funded project training across sectors, she has spent years watching what happens when ESG principles meet institutional reality.
“In most cases, people understand the importance of sustainability, inclusion, or responsibility,” she says. “The issue is that they don’t have clear frameworks, tools, or institutional support to act on that understanding.”
This is the core insight that shapes her contribution to ESG4GLAM. The problem isn’t ignorance. It’s the gap between knowing and doing — and that gap requires structural solutions, not more seminars.
Governance: the overlooked dimension
Ask Ćirić Lalić which ESG dimension is most developed in the GLAM sector, and she answers without hesitation: Social. Inclusion, accessibility, audience engagement — these are embedded in the culture of cultural institutions. They don’t feel like ESG because they predate the acronym.
The least developed? Governance. And this surprises people.
“Governance is conceptually recognised — through transparency, accountability, institutional processes — but it is the least translated into concrete competencies and everyday practices,” she explains. “It requires structured approaches, clear responsibilities, and stronger links to decision-making, evaluation, and accountability systems.”
This is precisely the gap that most corporate ESG frameworks fail to address for the cultural sector. A museum’s governance isn’t a board of directors answering to shareholders. It’s a web of public mandates, municipal funding, professional ethics, and community trust. Adapting ESG governance logic to that reality requires new thinking — not copy-paste.
What a competency framework must do
Ćirić Lalić is direct about what makes a competency framework useful or useless. Useful means operationally connected: competencies defined clearly enough that you can train them, assess them, and recognise them. Useless means everything else.
“ESG is not clearly defined as a set of competencies,” she notes. “This makes it difficult to train, assess, or recognise. This leads to reliance on individual initiative instead of systematic development.”
The ESG4GLAM framework, she argues, must close this gap by translating principles into roles, responsibilities, and actions. A professional should be able to look at the framework and understand: this is what I’m expected to do, at this level, in an institution like mine.
The validation question
How do you prove someone has ESG competencies? Not with a test, says Ćirić Lalić. With evidence.
“Validation should demonstrate what a professional is able to do in practice — analysing ESG-related challenges, designing inclusive programmes, engaging stakeholders, or improving institutional processes. Tools such as portfolios, project-based evidence, and micro-credentials can support this, but only if they are clearly linked to defined competencies and transparent assessment criteria.”
This is a high standard — but also, she argues, the only credible one. ESG validation that is disconnected from practice will be seen as exactly what too much ESG in the sector already is: a compliance ritual.
The real measure of success
Ćirić Lalić’s definition of what ESG4GLAM must achieve is both demanding and precise: “A competency framework and training system that is actually usable in practice. Practical, modular, and adaptable to different types of institutions. With credible validation mechanisms that make ESG competencies visible and transferable.”
And above all: “If it helps move ESG from a conceptual discussion to a structured, operational capability within the GLAM sector — that’s success.”