For the purposes of the regional cooperation of Croatia in the field of higher education, faculties and universities are mostly signing bilateral agreements, multilateral agreements with other Balkan countries are very rare. The most developed bilateral cooperation is with universities and faculties from neighbouring countries Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Hungary. There is some cooperation with Romania, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Serbia, while the cooperation with the universities from Montenegro, Turkey, Albania and Kosovo is at the lowest level. Most agreements include cooperation in the following areas: exchange of teaching and non-teaching staff, exchange of students, study visits, organization of joint courses, participation in seminars, conferences and summer schools, work on joint projects, exchange of experiences of compiling syllabuses, exchange of scientific publications and work on joint publications. The reality is that many of the signed agreements are not guarantees that cooperation is really going to be realized. Cooperation may be prevented by a lack of financial resources that faculties have at their disposal for cooperation and mobility activities with other faculties in the Balkans. Some cooperation of faculties is based on Erasmus agreements, while other cooperation exists even without signed bilateral agreements. This is mostly the case when the activities/projects are financed by the European Union through Tempus or the Framework programme (FP7) or CEEPUS, WUS and some other programmes that financially support cooperation between the Balkan countries.
Taking the example of the University of Zagreb, the largest university in Croatia, one can see that the mobility of students is not very extensive, less than 100 students who undertook exchange or attended some conferences and seminars at other universities and faculties in the region in the last 5 years. This may be contested with Slovenia, where around 400 students participated in mobility, and Serbia, with around 200 student visits. The countries which had the most visiting academic staff are Slovenia (more than 2200 visits) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (almost 2000 visits, out of which there were around 1100 visits to Mostar faculties).
Best Practices
Regional Cooperation of the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Zagreb
Bilateral agreements on cooperation have been signed with the following faculties and
universities in the region:
universities in the region:
- University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (in 2007)
- Faculty of Dentistry, University of Sarajevo (in 2005)
- Faculty of Dentistry, University of Skopje (in 2007)
The aim of the project was to link all medical centres in the region, to single out the most qualified ones and to work together on projects within FP7. One of the joint meetings was held in Zagreb on February 8-9, 2007 and it was organized by the Faculties of Dentistry and Medicine, both of the University of Zagreb. The meeting was attended by 180 experts in the field of biomedicine, coming from 15 different countries.
The Faculty of Dentistry is also taking part in the ERASMUS and BASILEUS programmes of exchange financed by the EU. Within these programmes, two students have been residing at the Faculty of Dentistry: Enit Nakas from the Faculty of Dentistry in Sarajevo (2009) and Vesna Ambarkova from the Faculty of Dentistry in Skopje (2010). Further, a postgraduate student from the Faculty of Dentistry in Zagreb, Ivan Galic, got a scholarship at the Faculty of Dentistry in Sarajevo, and one more student spent one semester during the last academic year in the Faculty of Dentistry in Belgrade. Recently, a dental textbook was published under the title “Clinical Use of Materials in Pediatric Dentistry”. It was written by a group of authors from Belgrade, Zagreb and Sarajevo and published by Beobook, Belgrade.One of the Faculty’s textbooks, entitled “Forensic Dentistry”, was translated into Albanian in collaboration with colleagues from Kosovo and published in 2007. Further, eminent experts from the Faculty of Dentistry have been invited as speakers at numerous courses of lifelong learning in the region during the last 5 years.
The Faculty of Dentistry, together with the Croatian Dental Society, is publisher of an internationally renowned and indexed scientific magazine Acta Stomatologica Croatica. The magazine publishes articles from the field of dentistry, and in the previous 5 years, it has published papers of authors and reviewers coming from almost all South Eastern Europe countries. The web site of the magazine is: www.ascro.hr.
Article written by Hrvoje Brkić, PhD
Department of Dental Anthropology, University of Zagreb, School of Dental Medicine
Master’s study programme of Librarianship
In June 2007, an agreement on the organisation and implementation of the part-time Master's study programme of Librarianship, for those employed by libraries in some Western Balkan countries, was signed within the COBISS Net (www.cobiss.net) project between IZUM (Institute of Information Science in Maribor) and the University of Zadar, the University of Ljubljana, the University of Skopje and the University of Prishtina. An agreement was signed only for two generations of students.
In the 2007/2008 academic year, the first generation of students (49) enrolled in the study programme on the Department of Library and Information Science at the University of Zadar. The programme for the second generation of students (37) is under the organisation of the Department of Library and Information Science and Book Studies of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana, in cooperation with the Institute of Information Science from Maribor. The first generation of students obtained the diploma issued by the University of Zadar and the second generation will get their diploma issued by the University of Ljubljana upon finishing the master studies.
Participation of students by countries can be seen in the table below:
The courses in study programme of the University of Zadar were held in Serbian, Croat or Bosnian, whereas the courses in the study programme of the University of Ljubljana are held in English. The courses have been conducted at different locations: two weeks in Zadar and two weeks in Ljubljana, as well as one week in Maribor, one week in Skopje/Ohrid and one week in Prishtina.
The study is financed by the Government of the Republic of Slovenia via IZUM. The selection of candidates was made by IZUM together with both of the cooperating universities; priority was given to candidates from those countries where the study of librarianship does not exist.
In cooperation with Prof. Srećko Jelušić, PhD
Vice-Rector, University of Zadar
Initiative for organizing joint PhD studies in the region
In September 2010, the representatives of 5 Balkan Universities (University of Durres, University of Novi Sad, University of Sarajevo, University of Zagreb and University of Zadar) met in Dubrovnik, on the occasion of the International Forum on Higher Education Reform – Foresight 2020. area, with emphasis on the implications of the process to the Western Balkans region.
This three-day Forum, an event held under the Novi Sad Initiative, as a follow-up of the biannual International Conferences on Higher Education (Novi Sad 2005, Dubrovnik 2007, Sarajevo 2009), aimed to explore a wider context of European higher education reform. The idea is that Forum represents a platform for discussion on crucial issues for further development of the EU higher education area, with emphasis on the implications of the process to the Western Balkans region.
The Rectors of the above mentioned Universities agreed to undertake the following steps:
- Enhance regional cooperation in doctoral education (i.e. Joint Programmes, Collaborative programmes);
- Promote and support mobility of doctoral candidates;
- Strengthen the concept of joint supervision of doctoral candidates;
- Develop infrastructure for mutual recognition of awarded doctoral degrees;
- Set the framework for exchange of evaluation programmes experts;
- Promote exchange of experts in Doctoral Theses Evaluation Committees;
- Initiate exchange of post-doctoral researchers;
- Participate in collaborative research grants in order to increase institutional capacities both in research expertise and infrastructure, with a long-term aim to set up Regional Centres of Excellence.
Signatories agreed to develop an Action plan on the above defined activities within the next 6 months. The Action plan is supposed to be sent to the Regional Co-operation Council for approval. The joint meetings will be organized annually, in order to evaluate the results achieved and to discuss future modalities of cooperation. Other universities from the region and other parties will be invited to join the initiative.
Extract from the Letter of Intent put together with the occasion of the International Forum on Higher Education Reform – Foresight 2020, Dubrovnik, 27-29 September 2010
