Regulations obstacle to return of Serbian scientists

BELGRADE - Regulations in Serbia often pose an obstacle to better cooperation with Serbian scientists in the diaspora and there is no clear will to facilitate their return, a conference held at the Rectorate of the University of Belgrade was told on Tuesday.

Even in cases when someone wants to return and work at national universities or institutions, they face the procedure of degree recognition, which can take up to a year, said the participants of a round table discussion on developing the infrastructure of a virtual university of the Serbian diaspora to address the needs of Serbs in the region, organised by the Faculty of Organisational Sciences at the initiative of its professor Jovan Filipovic, who has a database of 7,000 Serbian citizens abroad with doctoral degrees.

The chairwoman of the National Council for Science and Technological Development Vera Dondur said that there is a lack of awareness of how much more capable Serbia would be of introducing new learning methods and modern research if society was more oriented towards its diaspora.

Dondur said that she regularly meets young people who would be willing to return, but have nowhere to return to because nothing is being done in the country to achieve their return.

"We are not creating the possibility of something like that happening," Dondur said, adding that the country has no new organisational structures that would be open to a return of scientists now living abroad.

Srdjan Stankovic, the chairman of the National Council for Higher Education, said that the term "degree nostrification" is no longer used anywhere but in Serbia, which has as yet not introduced qualifications recognition.

Efforts to "translate" qualifications obtained...