Final Conference “Strengthening Integrity and Fighting Corruption in Higher Education

“Horizontal Facility for Western Balkans and Turkey” organized a final conference on the project “Strengthening Integrity and Fighting Corruption in Higher Education. The conference was held at the CenterVille Hotel, on May 15, 2019 in Podgorica.

At the very beginning of the conference, Danilo Nikolić, rector of the University of Montenegro, thanked the Council of Europe at the very beginning as a strategic partner in the process of integrity of the University of Montenegro, who recognized the importance of all the projects they had done in the previous period. As he pointed out, the Council of Europe enabled the Montenegrin academic community and the general public to become familiar with topics such as strengthening academic integrity, preventing plagiarism and developing ethical principles. The participation of renowned experts in this field in the projects of the University of Montenegro and the stay of many experts from our country to others contributed to the internationalization and quality of the entire process, Nikolić added. Among the most important projects implemented by UCG with the support of the Council of Europe, the entire process of collecting documentation and organizing promotional activities for the purpose of certification in the field of academic integrity is certainly the result of which in April UCG received a certificate in the field of academic integrity by the International Institute for Research and work on the prevention of irregular academic behavior and plagiarism at the University of Geneva, Nikolić concluded.

After Nikolić, Arijana Nikolić Vučinić, Director General of the Directorate for Pre-school, Primary and Inclusive Education and Education addressed the participants. She also thanked the Council of Europe for its support and added that Montenegro was the first country to regulate the area of ​​academic integrity through a special law and was a pioneer, saying that the law was prepared by the Ministry of Education with the support of a working group of experts engaged through projects and experts from the Council of Europe. She added that the passing of this law is proof that our society is ready to fight corruption in education and all forms of violation of academic integrity. At the end of the presentation, she said that the Ministry owns software for determining plagiarism, which is another tool with the law that should contribute to the improvement of the education qualiate in Montenegro.

Following the presentation of Nikolić and Vučinić, he launched a series of presentations on all topics related to academic integrity.

The first presentation was Božidarke Malešević Marković, Head of the Directorate for Student and Student Standards of the Ministry of Education. She talked about the law on academic integrity, its main principles and how it should be organized.

After her Sonja Bjelobaba, a consultant from the Council of Europe, she spoke on online research on academic integrity and research results in Montenegro.

Sanja Peković, Director of the Center for Study and Quality Control of the UCG, Michelle Bergada, President of IRAFPA and Aleksa Bjeliš, Consultant of the Council of Europe, spoke about the improvement of academic integrity at the University of Montenegro, the certification of UCG and the development strategy of UCG.

At the very end of the extremely comprehensive and rich conference, Vesna Ratkovic and Ian Smith, Council of Europe consultants, spoke on developing integrity plans in higher education, as well as assessing effectiveness and cooperation with beneficiaries.

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