International Conference “How does higher education remain relevant in the changing world”

The overall objectives of this conference were to share experiences and good practices from the EU and the Western Balkans and to discuss the remaining obstacles in implementing reform measures.  The specific objectives of the conference were to produce a set of recommendations for each sub-topic.

The conclusion was made that there is no enough information from both side, due to distrust existing between business sector and academia. The mentioned distrust is mainly from the part of business sector towards academia, since there is doubt that academia is capable of responding to the labour market needs and solving some major problems. It is inevitable to establish a model for constant and permanent communication between business sector and academia. In order to improve the communication and collaboration, it was proposed to create a platform for permanent dialogue, and organization of open days for business sector. It was agreed that professionalization of  management and administration / academic management is crucial Concerning the topic of research in higher education, it is necessary to address (re)structuring of PhD studies, and enable more inter– and multi-disciplinarity. These recommendations will be presented at the next Western Balkans Platform Ministerial meeting in the spring of 2013.