News

31 May 2007
Core-group joint paper

The first joint paper of all project core-group members was submitted for the Third Symposium of the Crop Sciences Department “Agro-innovation in crop production”. The Symposium will take place at Belgrade University on October 2007.  Title of paper: GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AND NATURAL RESOURCES - NEW APPROACH IN RESEARCH AND EDUCATION. Authors: S. Prodanovic, S. Vuckovic, J. Rogosic, S. Alibegovic-Grbic, M. Manojlovic, O. Cukalijev, B. Sitaula.

Information about Symposium on
agroinovacije@agrifaculty.bg.ac.yu

19 June 2007
Participation in the International workshop in Prague, Czech Republic

WB professor Maja Manojlovic participated in the International workshop on “Practical Solutions for Managing Optimum C and N Content in Soils IV”, held 19th to 22nd June 2007 in Prague, Czech Republic. She presented oral the paper highly related to the project. M. Manojovic, V. Acin: Long-term effects of agricultural practice on soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration in chernozem.

3-7 July 2007
Visit of WB partners to Norway

According to project objective 4/2007, WB leader and coordinator S. Vuckovic and S. Prodanovic officially visited UMB, Norway. During this visit they discussed with B. Sitaula and head of Noragric Dr Rut Haug about coming activities and project development. WB professors come to know net supported learning at UMB, especially the use of “Class Fronter” http://fronter.info/com/. They had a workshop at UNEP/GRID in Arendal http://www.grida.no/ focused on the follow points: climate change, e-learning at the Global Virtual University http://www.gvu.unu.edu/ and, application of GIS technologies. WB partners exchanged experiences with librarian Liv Ellingsen liv.ellingsen@umb.no about library systems at UMB/Noragric and WB. She prepared the list of documents in the Noragric library collections focusing Global environmental issues, which is now available on the WB-Globe site. WB professors participated in opening session of new project "Grønne energikommuner" related to environmental protection which took place at UMB on 6 July. On the end, WB partners met Dr Knut Hove, Rector of UMB and talked with him about the project.

9 July 2007
Letter of acceptance from BENA

Balkan Environmental Association (BENA) accepted for oral presentation the first Norway – West Balkan joint paper within the project  WB-Globe (authors: Bishal Sitaula, Slaven Prodanovic and Savo Vuckovic). BENA sent the follow mail:

Dear Dr. B. Sitaula,
Your paper entitled “GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE: NEED FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AND RESEARCH” has been accepted to be presented orally in the International Conference “QUALITY OF LIFE AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE FRAME OF E.U. SUSTAINABILITY”, November 15-17 2007 in Belgrade. If you are BENA member (for 2007 renewed) your accommodation and meals will be covered by BENA and your paper will be published in the Proceeding.

The Conference Secreteriat
Maria Tsantouka

BENA www.gen.teithe.gr/~bena
Technological Educational Institution of Thessaloniki
P.O. Box 141, 57400, Sindos, Thessaloniki, GREECE

13 July 2007
Letter of Dean to Project leader

Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture Belgrade Dr Nebojsa Ralevic sent a letter to project leader Bishal Sitaula. Dean expressed interest for incorporating "class-fronter" in the classroom as a good step to familiarize students with computer literacy.

“We need to produce a workforce that is educated, skilled in new technologies and able
to face global challenges. For this project it is essential to develop jointly "class-fronter" information technology in the educational system.”

15 August 2007
Available list of references in Global Changes

List of documents related to Global environmental issues in the Noragric library is available now at WB-Globe web-site under About Us: Focus> Global Environmental Changes.

10 September 2007
Application for the Ph.D. studies at University of Belgrade

Faculty of Agriculture announced Application for Ph.D. students for academic year 2007/08. Ph.D. students interesting in Global Environmental Changes are especially encouraged to apply for Program: Genetics, Plant breeding and Biotechnology.

The application deadline for the academic year 2007/08 is 30 September 2007.
Please, see details for submitting an application on
http://www.agrifaculty.bg.ac.yu/studenti/studo.htm

13 September 2007
Available Application form for student’s support

Support Fund Application Form for academic year 2007/08 is available on WB-Globe web-site. Students interesting in all focal points of the Project are encouraged to apply.

29 Feb 2008
Scientific paper from the project accepted for publishing

Dr. Elke Schulz, Editor of Archives of Agronomy and Soil Science, accepted for publishing the paper of Maja Manojovic “Long-term effects of agronomic practices on the soil organic carbon sequestration in Chernozem”.

1 March 2008
Annual Report submitted to SIU

Annual Report about project activities was sent to SIU. All partners received the final version of the report by e-mail.

4 March 2008
Information about 4th Workshop

Next 4th Project Workshop with participation of all WB partners will be organized during the first or second week of May 2008 in Ohrid, Macedonia. After the joint workshop, Bishal Sitaula and UMB professors will visit each West Balkan University.

15 April 2008
Accreditation progress

Documents for accreditation of the Faculty of Agriculture University of Belgrade, in printed and electronic forms, were submitted to the Ministry of Education. These documents contain different information about the Faculty, including information about six Ph.D. courses of the Basic courses package agreed within the project: Experimental Statistics, Methods of scientific Research, Plant Genetic Resources, Sustainable Management of Natural Resources and Environment, Biological and Molecular Markers, and Global Environmental Changes. For offered courses at BU, information about course responsible, number of credits, prerequisites, course objective, content, syllabus, literature, and exam were given.

13 – 15 May 2008
4th Workshop and 2nd Meeting of the Steering Committee

4th project workshop “Project related courses – status and improvement of teaching process” was organized in Ohrid, Macedonia, from 13 to 15 May 2008. Representatives from six universities (Belgrade, Novi Sad, Skopje, Zadar, Osijek and UMB) took part on this workshop. During two working days, 14 PP presentations were given. Participants visited old city of Ohrid and the monastery “St Naum”.

On the end of workshop, 2nd meeting of Steering Committee took place. President of SCM and representative of Belgrade University was Tomislav Zivanovic. Norwegian UMB was represented by Kjell Esser and Bishal Sitaula. SC brings 12 conclusions, available at the project web-site.

18 May 2008
New web site of the Faculty of Agriculture Belgrade

University Belgrade Faculty of Agriculture changed home page and content of the web. New version of the web is available at http://www.agrifaculty.bg.ac.yu/.

30 June 2008
First thesis defended within the project

Mr. Miroslav Zoric defended the Ph.D. thesis “Analiza interakcije genotipa i spoljašnje sredine u oplemenjivanju kukuruza primenom multivarijacionih modela (Analysis of genotype x environmental interaction in maize breeding by multivariate models)”. Members of Advisory committee were the follow: Gordana Surlan-Momirovic, Nebojsa Ralevic, Slaven Prodanovic, Mile Ivanovic, and Marija Kraljevic-Balalic. In this thesis, effects of several components of climate variation, such as month air temperatures, minimal and maximal temperatures, rainfalls, humidity, and sun, were analyzed. Maize genotypes were grown two years on seven locations. Results confirmed significant influences of environmental conditions on maize grain yield. Specific maize genotypes with high yield stability were selected.

15 - 23 August 2008
Visit of WB professors to Noragric

Five WB professors (M. Manojlovic and O. Cukaliev – core group members, G. Surlan-Momirovic and B. Cupina – SC members, T. Prentovic - project participant) visited UMB. Visiting professors took part in the teaching process by giving lectures to UMB students. B. Sitaula and I. Brycesson presented to WB gests activities related with education at UMB. Project partners discussed about research projects and developed a new project proposal. Professor Cukalijev presented this proposal to the representatives of the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Project leader B. Sitaula and the head of NORAGRIC, G. Synnevag also took part on this meeting at the Ministry. WB professors met several collogues working at different departments of UMB (B.R. Singh, IPM Department) and discussed about the cooperation. Also, they have had opportunity to see the advantages of student’s services at UMB, such as library (Liv Ellingsen) and Class Fronter, as well as they have sow the organization of the specialized laboratories at UMB. Last two days of the visit, WB partners were in the town Arendal. First day, they visited Marine Research Institute, together with MSc students. Second day, they visited Grid Arendal, welcomed by managing director and followed by several colleagues who informed them informed about the current activities.

15 September 2008
New courses at the Belgrade University on web site

New courses for PhD students which were developed within the project are available at Belgrade University web-site. The follow sites contains information about courses: http://webserver.rcub.bg.ac.rs/pretraga/predmet.jsf?lang=en&idPredmet=571 for Global Environmental Changes, http://webserver.rcub.bg.ac.rs/pretraga/predmet.jsf?lang=en&idPredmet=362 for Genetic resources and biodiversity, http://webserver.rcub.bg.ac.rs/pretraga/predmet.jsf?lang=en&idPredmet=569 for Biological and Molecular Tools in Plant Breeding, http://webserver.rcub.bg.ac.rs/pretraga/predmet.jsf?lang=en&idPredmet=549 for Sustainable Management of Natural Resources and Environment.

2 October 2008
Invitation from Regional Environmental Center (REC) for cooperation

Project Manager of Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) www.recyu.org, Miljana Colic Zekonja invited experts in Global environmantal changes to participate in „Feasibility study about national and sector projects in climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability”. Team with 15 members was established at the Faculty of Agriculture Belgrade, including three professors who teach the courses within the project: Radmilo Pesic, Savo Vuckovic and Slaven Prodanovic

3 October 2008
Invitation to the International Symposium in Opatija

Professor Vlado Kovacevic sent an invitation for participating on 4th International Symposium of Agronomists http://sa.pfos.hr that will be held from 16 to 20 February 2009 in Opatija, Croatia. This meeting will be organized by over twenty institutions, including Balkan Environmental Association (B.EN.A). Project participants are encouraged to participate on the project behalf on this meeting, according to conclusion of the PSC. Dead-line to submit the papers is 15 November 2008.

5-14 October 2008
The IUCN World Conservation Congress

The IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature), World Conservation Congress is the world’s largest and most important conservation event. Held every four years, the Congress aims to improve how we manage our natural environment for human, social and economic development. From 5 to 14 October, 2008, the World Conservation Congress was held in Barcelona, Spain. More than 6,600 leaders from government, the public sector, non-governmental organizations, business, UN agencies and social organizations discussed, debated and agreed on solutions for the world’s most pressing environmental issues.

18 - 21 October 2008
Project leader seminar 2008

SIU organized the Project leader seminar within the Cooperation Programme with countries in the Western Balkans in Belgrade (hotel Continental), from 18 to 21 October 2008. In total, 65 leaders and coordinators of seventeen projects receiving long-term funding (2006-2009) participated on this seminar. Our project was represented by the presentation “Education, research and training for Global environment change and sustainable management of natural resources” and with 5 representatives from all participating WB countries and Norway. This Seminar was an excellent opportunity to exchange the experiences and to discuss about international cooperation. Welcome was given by ambassador of Norway in Belgrade Haakon Blankenborg, vice-rector of University Beograd dr Neda Bokan and by chairman of the programme committee Gunnar Jordfald.

18 - 19 October 2008
V Study / Training Workshop in Belgrade

According to the conclusions of the project working group and SC, a Study / Training Workshop was organized at the Faculty of Agriculture in Belgrade, on 18 – 19 October 2009. Professors from six universities gave the lessons to post graduated students: Bishal Sitaula (UMB), Senija Alibegovic-Grbica (Sarajevo), Jozo Rogosic (Zadar), Slaven Prodanovic (Belgrade), Vlado Kovacevic & Mirko Stjepanovic (Osijek), and Maja Manojlovic (Novi Sad). This was the first time that professors from different WB universities give joint the lessons to students of Belgrade University and Osijek University. Additionally, project supported students presented their work. Miljana Colic Zekonja, project manager of Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe participated at this workshop. In total 27 presentations were given and discussion took part about each of them. First day, 15 students participated on the study workshop and second day 17 students. On the end of each day, students evaluated professors from different universities. Plan of lessons and all presentations are available at this web-site.

22 October 2008
Third Meeting of the Project Steering Committee

Third Meeting of Steering Committee held in Belgrade on 22 October 2008. The follow representatives were present: Gordana Surlan, Slaven Prodanovic, Savo Vuckovic, Maja Manojlovic, Bishal Sitaula, Jozo Rozovic, and Senija Alibegovic-Grbic. Steering Committee bring conclusion in 15 points which were sent to all project participants by e-mail.

1-15 November 2008
Admission of new Ph.D. students

Faculty of Agriculture announced admission of Ph.D. students for academic year 2008/09. Ph.D. students interesting in global environmental changes and management of natural resources are especially encouraged to apply for the Program “Agricultural Sciences” – module “Field and vegetable crops”. The number of students is limited and graduate programs will accept the best qualified students.

November 14, 2008
Climate Change Framework Action Plan approved by five Western Balkan countries

The Ministers responsible for environment of the Republic of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and the Republic of Serbia – observed by representatives of donor countries, international organizations, institutions and NGOs – met in Sarajevo to discuss and agree upon the voluntary participation in South East European Climate Change Framework Action Plan For Adaptation under the framework of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC). The conference was final stage of one year long process of development of the action plan, within the project implemented by the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC), financially supported by the Royal Ministry of Foreign Affaires of Norway.

15 November 2008
Cooperation with UNDP

The UNDP http://www.undp.org.yu/ invited experts and institutions working in the field of environmental protection at the Western Balkans to establish the cooperation. The frame for this cooperation is within the project “Strengthening capacities in the Western Balkans countries to address environmental problems”. The aims are the follow: to strengthen professional consultancy services in the Western Balkans region and to create data base which will serve to efficiently identify, select and contract experts for specific assignments in the field of environmental protection and which will be available to public, local/national authorities.

20 November 2008
Feed-back from students

Estimations of the lessons/presentations given by WB professors to students of Belgrade University were analyzed. This feed-back after Study/Training workshop suggests that professors from foreign universities were well accepted by students. Mean values of all lessons was 4.33 for the first day (17 estimations) and 4.27 for the second day (19 estimations), within the rank from 1 to 5. The best lessons on the first day was given by Jozo Rogosic (5/17), Bishal Sitaula (3/17) and Gordana Surlan-Momirovic (2/17), while on the second day, the best lessons were given by Slaven Prodanovic (7/19), Maja Manojlovic (5/19) and Vlado Kovacevic (2/19).

25 November 2008
Presentation of our project at SIU seminar available on Internet

The presentation of Bishal Sitaula, Slaven Prodanovic & Savo Vuckovic given during the SIU seminar and photos of participants and visit sites are available at: http://www.siu.no/en/Programme-overview/Western-Balkans-2006-2009/Project-leader-seminar-2008

1-3 Dec 2008
Meeting of SEEDNet at the University Belgrade

The meeting of the SEEDNet working group for fodder crops took place at the University Belgrade, Faculty of Agriculture. SEEDNet is the regional South East European organization working in plant genetic resources http://www-seednet.cbm.slu.se/. The aims of the SEEDNet are closely related with the Project WB-Globe, as the follow: to promote a sustainable utilization of plant genetic resources, and to strengthen collaboration, networking and linkages among various stakeholders at both national and regional levels through pooling of resources and use of comparative advantages available in the various institutions and countries. Similar institutions and researchers/professors take part in the both programs (University Osijek; University Sarajevo – Senija Alibegovic-Grbic; University Banja Luka – Djordje Gataric; University Belgrade – Slaven Prodanovic, Savo Vuckovic; University Podgorica – Rato Dubljevic).

15 Nov 2008
Open call for student support

Students interesting in project’s programs at PhD and MSc studies are invited to apply for financial support in the academic year 2008/09. The deadline for application is 31 Dec 2008. Please, use the same Application form as in 2007/08, available at http://www.wb-globe.org/saf.php. Send the Application form by e-mail to any one of WB or Noragric professor involved in the project. New students are also encouraged to apply.

20 November 2008
New flow cytometer

New flow cytometer “Partec PA” is provided by the project at the University Belgrade. Flow cytometry is a technique for counting and examining microscopic particles (cells) suspended in a stream of fluid. Flow cytometer is able to analyze several thousand cells every second. Presentation about this technique was given at the 5th Study/Training Workshop. Equipment is available for all students within the project interesting in changes of genome size in microorganisms, animals, and plants.

8 January 2009
Internationalization of the project

Scientific Committee of the 4th International Symposium on agriculture in Opatija www.pfos.hr decided to include in the official program the Round table “Influences of global climatic changes on agriculture”, on 17 February 2009. Moderators of this Round table with two presentations and discussion will be Bishal Sitaula, Vlado Kovacevic, and Slaven Prodanovic.

15 January 2009
Summer school at University Greifswald

In the context of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014), Prof. Dr. Susanne Stoll-Kleemann and Dr. Regine Schönberg (GTZ) will chair an international Summer School financed by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) from 23rd March to 3rd April 2009. The Summer School entitled “From Research to Practice: The Role of Education for Sustainable Development in Natural Resource Management in Research, Education and International Cooperation“ will be organized on the Isle of Vilm, close to the University Greifswald, Germany. Slaven Prodanovic is invited to participate on this Summer School and to present the results of our project through an inter- and trans-disciplinary dialogue between 25 participants from 18 countries.

January 2009
Global Change as a subject of BSc diploma work

Information about our project on the web site attracts even B.Sc. students. Student Ivana Trifkovic showed the interest in Global change and put this subject in the focus of her Diploma work. After finishing all exams at the Department of Crop sciences, she defended the work with the follow title: “Effects of global environmental changes on the loss of biodiversity”.

15 - 19 February 2009
4th International Symposium on Agriculture in Opatija

Six professors from our project (Bishal Sitaula, Savo Vuckovic, Slaven Prodanovic, Jozo Rogosic, Mirko Stjepanovic and Vlado Kovacevic) participated in the 44th Croatian & 4th International Symposium on Agriculture, held in Opatija from 15 to 19 February 2009. The main goal of the Symposium is to present to the agronomists and the general public the results of scientific and professional work of specialists and in this way enable a better transfer of scientific and professional achievements into agricultural production. The Programme of Symposium included Round table theme: “Influences of global climatic changes on agriculture”, initiated by our core-group. We leaded this event and we gave several PP presentations about results of our project to the public. After presentations, an open discussion about our project and results took place. Three students supported by the project (Ranko Gantner, Violeta Maklenovic and Mia Brkljaca) also participated on the Round table and took part in other activities during Symposium. Two papers related to our project were orally presented and included in the Proceedings: 1) Sitaula B., M. Stjepanović, V. Kovačević, R. Gantner, S. Prodanović, S. Vučković (2009): Global environmental changes impact agricultural production; and 2) Maklenovic V., S. Vuckovic, V. Kovacevic, S. Prodanovic, Lj. Zivanovic (2009): Precipitation and temperature regimes impacts on maize yields. These papers are available at http://sa.pfos.hr/sa2009/radovi/pdf/sazeci/s01-004.pdf and http://sa.pfos.hr/sa2009/radovi/pdf/Radovi/r05-022.pdf. President of the Project Steering Committee Gordana Surlan Momirovic was invited to come on Symposium by the coordination team, because we planned and organized there the meeting of PSC. One additional important meeting was arranged with F. Vosniakos in aim to establish cooperation between BENA and our project. Technician Milanka Slavkovic engaged from the beginning on the project, participated on all events in Opatija in aim to improve her knowledge and to follow the programme of an international Symposium.
All activities during Symposium were done according to the Project description and Annual plan of work.

1 March 2009
Annual Report submitted to SIU
Annual Report about project activities was sent to SIU. All partners received the final version of the report by e-mail.

1 May 2009
Plan of work 2009 agreed

The Plan of Work for the Project Year 2009 was agreed between participants. All partners received it by e-mail. Activities and budget are strongly given with focus on education, and with respect of the results of the Project according to the application.

Second thesis defended within the project
13 July 2009

Mr. Dejan Cvikic defended his Ph.D. dissertation entitled:
“The use of morphological and molecular markers in selection of superior lines and hybrids of pepper (Capsicum annuum L.)” at the University of Belgrade. Members of Advisory committee were the follow: Slaven Prodanovic, Gordana Surlan-Momirovic, Dubravka Savic, Mirjana Mijatovic, and Djura Gvozdenovic.

15 – 25 June 2009
Visit of Review Team to WB

Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has decided to review the programmes “Co-operation in higher education and research with countries in the Western Balkans”. Review Team will visit 10 projects, and our project among these ten. The Review Team will visit the participating countries in the period 15th of June to the 25th of June. The Review Team consists of Erlend Sigvaldsen and Mr. Zoran Velkovski.

18 – 23 August 2009
Exchange visit of WB professors to Noragric

Professors Jozo Rogosic and Senija Alibegovic-Grbic visited Noragric as agreed in Work plan 2009.

7 September 2009
Invitation to the Conference

We received an invitation from the secretariat and the programme board of SIU for a final conference in Sarajevo, on March 2010. We asked Ingeborg Revheim for participation of all 5 state representatives.

15 September 2009
External estimation about our project

We received information about summary status of the SIU and RCN projects. In the Table 1 of the Review of Norwegian Programmes within Education and Research in the Western Balkans http://www.umb.no/statisk/noragric/inst_coop_balkan/
ud_final_report_review_of_norwegian_programmes_in_wb_09.09.09.pdf are also presented data about our SIU Project 6: “Education, research and Training for Global Environmental Change”. The key sources for the table are the annual reporting from the projects, the questionnaires, and the field visits. Our project was estimated on the follow way: Status - Mostly on schedule, but Bologna process in WB area delayed; Relevance - Very relevant, in a comparatively new area in WB; Effectiveness - Reasonable, but complex organization with many partners; Sustainability - Good, new courses are accredited and teached.

18 September 2009
Invitation to VI Workshop for all project participants

According to Plan of Work 2009, project coordination team will organize the VI Project workshop in Osijek (Croatia). Our hosts will be professors Vlado Kovacevic and Mirko Stjepanovic. Program of the workshop is available on the project web-site.

Third thesis defended within the project
22 October 2009

Postgraduate student supported by the project, Mia Brkljaca successfully defended her PhD dissertation “Effects of Mineral Nitrogen on Leaching of Macroelements from Soil in Agroecosystem of Central Dalmatia”. The dissertation was defended publicly on October 22nd 2009 at the Faculty of Science and Education, University of Mostar.