There has always been great interest in education and academic training in the United States in Serbia, as evidenced by the number of candidates applying for scholarship competitions regularly announced by the US Embassy in Belgrade, says Isidora Nikolic Savin, lawyer and president of Fulbright and Friends.
The association gathers scholarship holders of the academic exchange program of the US Government, which are realized in the Republic of Serbia through the US Embassy in Belgrade. These are the Fulbright, Hubert H. Humphrey, Ron Brown, Junior Faculty Development Program (JFDP) and International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP) programs.
The mission of the association is to promote professional and academic excellence, as well as positive social change, and aims to contribute to strengthening the capacity of international cultural, institutional, scientific and professional exchange and cooperation. According to the data of the program, from 1961 until today, almost 880 experts from Serbia and the USA who stayed on the study program in Serbia, received a scholarship from the Fulbright guest program.
Why is the United States interesting to our experts in education and research?
The reason for that is primarily the quality of the curriculum and methodology of working with students, as well as the long-term primacy of American universities over European ones on all relevant international ranking lists of academic institutions. Therefore, the knowledge and title acquired at one of the universities from the USA represent not only an excellent basis for achieving a successful career, but they are also a matter of prestige.
For which scientific fields and faculties do people from Serbia apply?
The database of scholarships of the academic exchange program with the USA available to our association indicates a very wide range of social and natural sciences for which the exchange programs were available to interested candidates. However, the scientific fields for which exchange programs are offered in Serbia mainly depend on the type and purpose of the academic program for which the US Embassy provides funding. The focus of these programs varies from the improvement of the socio-economic situation in Serbia, to the development of agriculture and biomedical sciences.
If we asked the alumni of your organization, what would be the answer to the question about the importance of American scholarships for the development of Serbian science and society?
The answer to this question is so important for our association that last year, in cooperation with the Center for American Studies, we organized a large two-day conference entitled “The Importance of American Scholarships for the Development of Serbian Science and Society”, which was to be held at the Belgrade University Rectorate. The conference was scheduled for March and it was supposed to be attended by many recognized experts who once attended some of the exchange programs, but the COVID-19 epidemic and the imposed state of emergency disrupted our plans. I hope that we will soon be able to hold a conference, after which I will have a concrete answer to this question.
In 2013, the Government of Serbia decided to support the Fulbright program and set aside a certain amount for that. A large number of domestic institutions (hospitals, companies, faculties, institutes) also awarded scholarships to experts from the USA who came to Serbia. Does this practice still exist and why is the two-way character of the program important?
Yes, since 2014, the Government of Serbia has been contributing 50,000 dollars a year to the Fulbright program. These funds are intended for scholarships for Serbian professors, scientists and students who are studying at universities in the United States within the Fulbright program. The US government also provides additional scholarships to Serbian professors, scientists and students for the same type of scholarship. In addition, the US Government provides scholarships to American professors, scientists and students who come to universities in Serbia under the Fulbright program. Of course, universities in Serbia, although they do not provide direct scholarships to Americans, provide full logistical and scientific assistance to Fulbright scholarship holders during their stay in Serbia.
Fulbright administrators would like American lecturers and researchers to be interested in working outside Belgrade, especially in cities in southern Serbia such as Nis, Kragujevac and Novi Pazar. Do you have information on how this goal of the program is achieved? Are you in contact with American researchers living in Serbia?
True, this is one of the goals to which program administrators attach the greatest importance, and number of American experts and students interested in cooperating with Serbian colleagues at universities outside Belgrade is growing year by year. During the academic year 2019/20, five students stayed within the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant program throughout Serbia – from Subotica and Novi Sad, to Nis, Vranje and Novi Pazar. Unfortunately, due to the risky situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, this academic year we do not have a single American on a Fulbright scholarship in Serbia. We are working on hosting a new generation of American Fulbright players in Serbia at the beginning of September 2021. Of course, everything will depend on how the pandemic situation develops further.
How to improve cooperation and exchange between the two countries?
Every type of academic exchange between the USA and Serbia has inevitably led to a permanent connection between the two countries, because a study stay in another country, especially one that is longer than one academic year, leads to the coexistence of program participants with another culture, eventual adoption of different cultural patterns and certainly to a broadening of horizons. According to the database of members of our association, most of our people who have stayed in the United States on one of the exchange programs are top experts in their fields who contribute to their community through their work and implementation of knowledge acquired during training in the United States.
Who are the famous Fulbright people and participants in other programs in Serbia?
Among the participants in American programs in Serbia are a large number of prominent people in Serbia, including members of SANU, university rectors, NBS governors, deans and faculty professors, ministers and MPs from all government in SFRY and Serbia, but also recognized artists. The list of sound names would take up much more space than this interview allows, but if we focus only on the domain of culture, the names of several prominent artists who contributed to the establishment of cultural ties between Serbia and the United States are quite eloquent. For example, the famous alumni of the Fulbright program are Olja Ivanjicki, Milovan Danojlic, Srdjan Karanovic, Vida Ognjenovic, Svetlana Bojkovic, Slobodan Sijan, Biljana Srbljanovic, Grozdana Olujic.
In 2015, your association established the annual award for professional excellence “Leader” (Trailblazer), which recognizes the outstanding professional contribution of individuals in Serbia in the field of science and research, professional development or positive social change. Who are the previous winners and why is it important to have such an award?
Our award aims to promote exceptional people and give them recognition for achievements in a particular year. This reflects its primary significance – that, no matter how much we are showered with bad examples on a daily basis, we should at least occasionally remind ourselves that there are exceptional people among us for whom no unfavorable circumstances are an obstacle. According to the dozens of applications we receive each year for the competition, I got the impression that our society is much less inert than the general impression and that it is very rich in individuals who achieve exceptional results in their field, or who seek to change the world in which they live at least at the micro level, expecting nothing in return.
The previous winners of our award come from various fields of science and social engagement. These are the individuals behind the initiative “Mixaliste – a multicultural center for refugees and the local community” whose engagement in helping solve the migrant crisis is well known; Dusica Popadic, founder and director of the “Incest Trauma Center”, who is a pioneer in providing psychological and legal assistance to sexually abused children and adults who have survived sexual violence in childhood, as well as their families; Dr. Marina Hughson, a sociologist who has dedicated her entire professional life to the fight for gender equality; students of class III / 1 of the Tenth Belgrade Gymnasium “Mihajlo Pupin” from Belgrade who are the real representatives of the successful implementation of the grassroot initiative; prof. Dr. Radojka Vukcevic, one of the best historians of American literature in Yugoslavia, Nova Ekonomija reports.
