Eurasia Press & News
For the first time, the University of Belgrade has found its place on the list of the 500 best universities in the world.After years of trying to enter the so-called Shanghai list, the University of Belgrade has finally won its place there – one of only two in the region.
Croatia’s Zagreb University is the only other one from the region placed in the same grouping.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities is conducted by Shanghai University, based on criteria including scientific research, the influence on science, the number of citations of works, turnout in certain areas and the influence of the university in the region.Although the Shanghai list is an informal document, it is a matter of prestige to have a place on it, because it includes only two per cent of all world universities.
Harvard University tops the list followed by three other US universities, Stanford, MIT (Massachusetts Insititute for Technology), and University of California, Berkeley.
In fifth place in the University of Cambridge in England.
Only the first 100 universities on the list are cited in exact order. The rest are put in groups of a hundred each, based on alphabetical order.
Zarko Obradovic, Serbia’s Minister of Education, Science and Technological Development, said he was pleased that Belgrade University had now joined the Shanghai list, adding that it proved that quality was beginning to show.
“It is good for us because it shows that we do after all have a good quality of academic education,” the minister said.
According to Obradovic, the result was accomplished partly through implementation of the law on university education.
He said that Belgrade’s result now presents a challenge for other universities in Serbia to go down the same path.
Obradovic teaches at a private Megatrend University, which is owned by Mica Jovanovic, a high-ranking official of the governing Socialist Party.
Some professors at the University of Belgrade, which is the oldest such instituion in Serbia founded in 1905, complain that Obradovic is abusing his position to help Megatrend to the detriment of Belgrade University.
