The conference on “Academic integrity - Achievements and future perspectives of Montenegro” provided an opportunity for higher education professionals to gain a deeper insight into a culture of academic integrity as well as understanding of contemporary trends and challenges in this area. The Conference was held in Becici, 16-17 May 2017.
Opening the conference, Radmila Vojvodic, Rector of the University of Montenegro emphasised the importance of a well-regulated system and consistent application of the rules and procedures, noting that “it really means that everything stands against assiduity and academic ethics of academic community members in order to be respectively free of commercialisation of higher education, diploma mills, corruption and plagiarism, PhD manias phenomenon, that is to say free of hyper-production of academic titles. All of these are phenomena the Western Balkans is facing”. Speaking about the amendments to the Law on Higher Education, Mubera Kurpejovic, Director General of the Directorate for Higher Education in the Ministry of Education highlighted the recommendation of the recent Baseline study commissioned by the Council of Europe on the need to reconsider the status of the Council for Higher Education and on establishing the independent national quality assurance agency. “Such an agency should contribute to further strengthening of academic integrity and fight against all forms of corruption in higher education”, she added.
Vesna Atanasova, Programme Manager spoke about the culture of academic integrity that needs to be firmly established in each and every society. She observed that “legal mechanisms are not sufficient to fight the corruption in education. We need to work more on changing the mind-set of academic professionals. Such a positive culture of change could contribute to strengthening of integrity in education”. She assured that Council of Europe will provide support to the Ministry of Education in developing the Law on Academic Integrity and in capacity building of the new agency on quality assurance once established.
Conference attendees heard and participated in many dynamic discussions during workshop sessions addressing topics such as “Institutional response to academic misconduct,” “Mechanisms for effective implementation of Code of Ethics,” and “Approaches in plagiarism prevention” which were facilitated by experts from France, UK, and Latvia who, in addition, shared their knowledge and experience on topics such as academic corruption, code of ethics in higher education, and on policies for academic integrity in South East Europe. Practical insights into academic integrity policy frameworks in the Western Balkan countries as well as from the Gothenburg University were provided as well. The regional dimension is reinforced by participation of a delegation of 8 representatives of Serbian Higher Education Sector who positively impacted the discussions and experience sharing.
The outcomes of the Becici conference and its recommendations will contribute to reflections that will be communicated to the Ministry of Education and other relevant stakeholders.
The two-day conference brought together around 85 high education professionals - national representatives from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science, the University of Montenegro, the Agency for Anti-Corruption, higher education institutions, education policy and research institutes, experts, academics, international organisations/donors in Montenegro, media as well as other relevant stakeholders.