University of Zagreb
Faculty of Kinesiology
University of Zagreb
Faculty of Kinesiology
Title: Associate professor
Function:
upon appointment via e-mail
integrated undergraduate and graduate
graduate
doctoral
Predmet
Dr. Sorić joined KIFZG in 2005 and currently acts as an associate professor in Physical Activity and Health, and head of the Laboratory for Measurement and Surveillance of Physical Activity. Since 2018 he is also a senior research associate at the University of Ljubljana within the SLOfit research group , where he participates in numerous research projects focusing on children's physical fitness and physical activity and their relationship to health. In 2003, he was educated as a medical doctor at the School of Medicine in Zagreb (Croatia) and in 2010 received his PhD in biomedicine at the same institution. His academic career began in 2005 with the position of research assistant at the Faculty of Kinesiology of the University of Zagreb, while his independent research career started in 2016, when he received the position of Assistant professor at the same institution. His main research interests are objective measurement of physical activity, sleep and fitness and the relationship between physical activity and fitness with health and disease.
Dr. Sorić's work is strongly focused on school children and adolescents, although a lifelong perspective is also emphasized in his research. His global perspective is reflected through his participation in the FitBack European network of scientists, and the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), a global network of health scientists supported by the Wellcome Trust that provides accurate and timely data on the main risk factors for chronic non-communicable diseases for all countries of the world. Since 2016, when he became one of the core members of NCD-RisC, he has been monitoring the global prevalence and trends of obesity and high blood pressure in adults and children. As an important member of NCD-RisC, he was invited to a small group of authors who, on behalf of his colleagues, wrote a group of several articles published in the world's most prestigious journals. Among them, five articles stand out: two articles published in the journal Nature, which reject the common paradigm that urbanization is the main driver of the current obesity epidemic in adults and children; and three Lancet articles: two on global temporal trends in height and BMI in children and in adults, and one on global trends in blood pressure over the past 40 years. To date, he has published more than 80 peer-reviewed scientific articles, of which more than 70 are indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection, one university textbook ("Sports Nutrition"), and is the author of chapters in two other university textbooks (“Physical activity and health” and “Cardiology of sports, physical and work activities”).
His work has received >26000 (h-index=31) and >14200 (h-index=21) independent citations to date (Google Scholar and WOS respectively). In 2021, 2022 and 2023, he was ranked among the 2% of the most influential scientists in the world according to the Stanford-Elsevier ranking. During his career, Dr. Sorić participated in many large-scale scientific projects related to the field of physical activity and health, including 3 projects funded under the Horizon scheme. He was an invited lecturer at several international scientific meetings, including the 16th World Congress of Public Health, and an active participant in more than 30 domestic and international scientific meetings. He works as an evaluator for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie measures, the European Union's leading program for funding doctoral education and postdoctoral training of researchers. He was also a reviewer for a WHO policy document and is listed as a reviewer in many international scientific journals indexed by WOS (e.g. British Journal of Sport Medicine, Obesity, Journal of Science and Medicine, Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism, BMC Public Health).
In 2022, he received a gold plaque from the University of Ljubljana for his achievements within the SLOfit research group. In the same year, as a member of the SLOfit research group, he also received the #BEACTIVE Across Generation Award from the European Commission, and as a co-author of the online application Moj SLOfit, he also received the WEBSI award - the largest competition for digital projects in Slovenia. In 2020, he received an award as part of the "Ten Best Research Achievements in 2020" program of the University of Ljubljana.
In the period 2007-2010, he was a member of the expert commission formed by the Government of the Republic of Croatia, which designed the "National Action Plan for the Prevention of Obesity 2010-2012". From 2023, he is a member of the scientific board of Nuqleus - deep tech venture builder of the innovation center Nikola Tesla in Zagreb, whose goal is to build a startup ecosystem through connecting scientific institutions and high-tech companies.
2025-2031 “Young Researchers’ Career Development Project – Training New Doctoral Students” (CSF)
2024-2025 JAPreventNCD, EU4Health Programme (2021/2027) (associate)
2023-2027 SmartCHANGE, Horizon Europe (scientific manager)
2023-2025 FitBack4Literacy, Erasmus+ Sport (associate)
2020-2024 Determinants of Physical Activities in Settings” (DE-PASS); COST action; European Commission, (associate- national contact)
2020-2024 “Young Researchers’ Career Development Project – Training New Doctoral Students” (CSF)
2020-2022 FitBack - The european network for support of physical fitness monitoring systems (Erasmus+); participant contact;
2019-2022 “Young Researchers’ Career Development Project – Training New Doctoral Students” (CSF)
2018-2022 Science and Technology in childhood Obesity Policy - STOP (Horizon 2020); work package leader
2018-2021 “Young Researchers’ Career Development Project – Training New Doctoral Students” (CSF)
2017-2020 Collective wisdom driving public health policies - CrowdHEALTH (Horizon 2020); Researcher
2016/2017 Croatian and Slovenian Physical Activity in Adolescence Longitudinal Study (CRO-SLO-PAALS) – Principal investigator
2015 – ... NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC)
2013/2014 Studying Correlates of Physical Activity in 15-yr-old Students (funded by the University of Zagreb)
2013 – … Analysis of Children’s’ Development in Slovenia 2013 - Investigator
2007/2013 The Role of Physical Activity Level in Chronic Cardiovascular Disease Prevention (Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia, grant number 0340342282-2325) - PhD student; Investigator
2012/2013 Patterns of habitual physical activity in normal-weight and overweight 11-yr old children (funded by the University of Zagreb).
2002- 2006 Influence of exercise on somatic, functional and health status (Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia, grant number 034207) – PhD student
2016 - present Assisstant Professor, Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Zagreb, Croatia
2017 - present Research Associate, Faculty of Sport, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
2010 - 2016 Senior Research Assistant, Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Zagreb, Croatia
2005 - 2010 Research Assistant, Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Zagreb, Croatia
2003 - 2004 Intern, the Emergency Medical Centre, Zagreb, Croatia.
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