The Central and Eastern European Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (CEENQA) held on July 21, 2021 the sixth consecutive two-month online meeting of representatives of network member agencies, which in addition to the report of the president and board members was dedicated to the topic of holding virtual training workshops, as well as the presentation of the work of network member agencies.
As part of the implementation of the project of ranking higher education institutions in the Republic of Srpska, in Belgrade on July 16, 2021 a working meeting was held between the Agency for Higher Education of Republic of Srpska and the Center for Evaluation in Higher Education and Science (CEON), as a partner in the project in charge of measuring the scientific performance of researchers from Republic of Srpska. The meeting, which was held in the premises of CEON, was attended by the director and assistant directors of the Agency for Higher Education of Republic of Srpska, as well as the president of CEON and a member of the Expert ranking team in charge of bibliometrics, prof. Dr. Pero Sipka and associates.
The purpose of the meeting was to harmonize certain doubts in the way of collecting and processing data related to the evaluation of scientific productivity of researchers from Republic of Srpska. It was agreed at the meeting to ask higher education institutions for data on authors who listed only university and not faculty affiliations, which would enable the completion of the procedure of classifying researchers by faculties and evaluating scientific productivity and influence of faculties. It was also agreed to ask higher education institutions, on pre-prepared electronic forms, for data on the share of researchers' engagement in higher education institutions in order to obtain normalized indicators of scientific productivity and influence, taking into account the requirements of modern bibliometric evaluation standards.
It was stated that the activities in this part of the project are proceeding according to the planned dynamics and that the review of evaluation results will be enabled through an interactive application that will be placed on the Agency's server.
The Management Board of the Agency for the Higher Education Republic of Srpska on its 28th regular session on July 7, 2021, adopted the Decision on the appointment of the members of the Committee for Appeals and Complaints.
The Law on Quality Assurance in Higher Education of Republic of Srpska ("Official Gazette of Republic of Srpska", No. 67/20) provides for the establishment of the Committee for Appeals and Complaints as an independent body of the Agency that reviews appeals and decides on complaints of higher education institutions.
In accordance with the Agency's Statute, the Committee has three members: two representatives of the RS/B&H academic community, of which at least one is a legal expert, and one student representative. The members of the Committee are appointed by the Management Board on the proposal of the Director of the Agency, after the public competition procedure for members of the Committee from the academic community, or on the proposal of the Student Union for a member of the Committee from among students. The term of office of the members of the Committee is four years with the possibility of another election, except for a student who is elected for a period of one year with the possibility of another election.
Based on the request for accreditation submitted on October 18, 2019 and the fulfillment of all legal preconditions, the Agency for Higher Education of the Republic of Srpska, after the completion of the accreditation procedure, issued a Decision on accreditation for the Public Institution Higher Medical School Prijedor. By the decision of the Agency from June 29, 2021, the Public Institution Higher Medical School Prijedor is granted accreditation for a period of 5 years, which runs from the day of validity, ie. day of issuing the Decision.
Prior to the Decision, the Agency for Higher Education of the Republika Srpska, in accordance with the legally prescribed procedures, conducted the procedure of accreditation of the higher education institution and the study program Health Care performed within the higher education institution, and in accordance with the Criteria for Accreditation of Higher Education Institutions, Criteria for Accreditation of Study Programs in Republic of Srpska and B&H and the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG 2015).
After the external evaluation, which included a visit to the institution by the Commission of experts appointed from the list of international and domestic experts, and checking the compliance of the higher education institution and the applied study program with the requirements of the Criteria for Accreditation of Institutions, Criteria for Accreditation of Study Programs and ESG Standards 2015. in accordance with the legally prescribed procedures, the Commission of International and Domestic Experts prepared a report and issued a recommendation for the accreditation of the higher education institution.
The third seminar for representatives of higher education institutions of Republic of Srpska and stakeholders within the project of ranking higher education institutions in Republic of Srpska was held on June 22, 2021, organized by the Agency for Higher Education of Republic of Srpska.
In the introductory part of the seminar, in addition to the director of the Agency and the head of the Expert Team, the representatives of higher education institutions were addressed by prof. Enes Hasic, PhD, Director of the Agency for Development of Higher Education and Quality Assurance in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who stressed the importance of ranking higher education institutions and stressed that the ranking, as an additional quality assurance mechanism, should be extended to the Federation of BiH and regionally.
