Research Areas:

• Social geography
• Borders; Border regions; Cross border relationships; Minorities; European integration process

Biography:

Bufon graduated in geography and ethnology at the Philosophy Faculty of the University of Ljubljana in 1983. For his degree thesis »Regional Geography of the Doberdob Plateau« he was awarded the Slovene national faculty award “Prešernova nagrada” in 1984. He received his M. Sc. degree in geography at the same Faculty of the University of Ljubljana in 1990 – for this thesis (»Ethnic and Regional Developmen of Border Regions: The Case of the Slovene Ethnic Territory in Friuli-Venezia Giulia«) he was awarded the “Tončičeva nagrada” award in Trieste. He defended his Ph. D. thesis on »The Social-geographical Function of the Slovene Population in the Integration Processes in the Gorizia Border Region« in 1995.
He was a research assistant at the Department of Geography at the University of Ljubljana (1986-1993) and part-time researcher at the Slovene Research Institute (SLORI) in Trieste (1985-1995). From 1996 to 1998 he was a full-time researcher of the Science and Research Centre of Koper, where he was leading the Research Team and was the Vice-President of its Scientific Board. He retained a part-time research position at this Centre from 1999 to 2003, where he was Chair of its Institute for Mediterranean Human and Social Studies (up to 2006) and Director of its first National Research Programme »Interdisciplinary Aspects of Mediterranean Slovenia and Areas of Cultural Contact« (1999-2003), and later of the National Research Programme »Areas of Cultural Contact in the Integration Processes« (2004-2019). From 2009 to 2013 he was also Chair of its Institute for Geographical Studies. He was member of its Scientific Board from 1995 to 2013 and member of its Administration Board in the period 1996-1999. He was elected Scientific Counsellor at the Science and Research Centre in 2001. Since 2019 he is a member of the Institute for Linguistic Research ZRS Koper.
Bufon advanced from Lecturer to Associate Professor at the University of Ljubljana, where he became the first Chair of Political Geography in 2001. From 2003 to 2016 he served at the newly established University of Primorska, Koper (Slovenia), where he became Full Professor in 2007. He was the co-founder of its Faculty for Humanities, and the founder of its Department of Geography, becaming its first Chair in the period 2001-2007. He was member of the Faculty Senate from 2001 to 2007 and from 2012 to 2016. He was also a Jean Monnet Chair and helped to develop the first international Ph.D. programme in »Diversity Management« with the Universities of Graz and Bologna. At the university level, he became member of its Senate and its first Vice-rector for Research and Development Issues in 2003-2007.
In the period 1998-2008 he was the President of the Scientific Board of the Slovene Research Institute (SLORI) in Trieste, and was President of this research institute in the period 2004-2016. He was also President of the Scientific Board of the Geographical Institute of Ljubljana and member of the Slovene National Committe for Geography in the period 2003-2008.
His bibliography counts more than 400 units, of which more than 10 scientific monographs, more than 50 chapters in books and more than 60 scientific articles. More than 70 scientific works were published in English or other major languages. He is the most cited Slovene human geographer abroad. For his work Milan Bufon received several awards:

• Bronze Medal of the Association of Slovene Geographical Societies (2003);
• the »Glasnik znanosti« award of the Science and Research Centre in Koper (2004 );
• the »Zlata plaketa« award of the University of Primorska (2010);
• the Slovene National Agency for Research recognized his book “Ne vrag, le sosed bo mejak” (“No More Shall Foes, But Neighbours Be”) as one of the best Slovene achievements in Humanities for the year 2011 (2013).