Serbia’s national research fund ‘on hiatus’ as researchers face delays in grant evaluation

Serbia’s fledgling research foundation, financed largely through EU grants and World Bank loans, has hit a major setback just a few years into its existence, with many researchers fearing a major gap in funding as foreign cash dries up.

The Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia was set up in 2019 after nearly a decade with no new national calls for research project funding, a situation that many saw as devastating for the competitiveness and excellence of Serbia’s researchers. Previously, such calls were run directly by the science ministry, but political instability meant they were paused after 2011.

The new foundation, which was widely welcomed, has supported several major research calls thanks to financing through the EU instrument for pre-accession assistance (IPA), namely a grant of €75.5 million in 2019, and World Bank loans worth $48 million in 2019 and €25 million 2024. 

But with all the projects funded to date ending soon, researchers are concerned that there have been no new calls since 2024. The last was the €24 million Ideas 2024 call, which was meant to fund three-year projects in basic and applied research in all fields with up to €300,000 per project. While the deadline fell in January 2025, the proposals submitted have not yet been reviewed, and researchers now fear the funding will simply be axed. 

In an online update in November, the fund blamed the delays on a technical glitch in the automated software used in project evaluations, and the need to subject the whole process to a review. This would involve “an internal evaluation of the validity and correctness of the implemented procedure” and a “comprehensive technical and procedural analysis of the software, accompanying documentation and all further evaluation steps.”

This January, however, reviewers got an e-mail from the fund telling them that evaluation of the proposals has been put on hold. “Unfortunately,” the e-mail read, “due to unforeseen circumstances the call and the selection process for the programme board members has been paused for the time being. We will let you know should this change [. . .].”

With no further explanation and questions going unanswered, many researchers now think the government is withholding any remaining money amid political instability and an election expected within a year or so.

The delays coincide with a change in the foundation’s management. Nenad Filipović, a highly cited engineering researcher formerly at Harvard University, was replaced as director in 2025 by Darija Kisić, an epidemiologist at the University of Belgrade who served as minister for family welfare and demography in 2022-24. It was Kisić who issued the November update.

Her appointment as acting director of the foundation is seen by some as the latest in a trend of the government appointing party faithfuls to leadership positions in academia, in an attempt to stymie the opposition.

The fund has not responded to requests for comment.

Neven Isailović, a senior research associate at the Institute of History Belgrade, says many in the academic community believe the fund is “effectively on hiatus” and that “there is neither money, nor interest in the ruling class to invest in the functioning of the fund at this time.” 

“There is a general wish of the increasingly authoritarian state to centralise resources and money, and not to invest in science with soaring oil and gas prices and possible elections in months to come,” he says.

The delays follow 18 months of student-led protests and calls for an early election over allegations of corruption and a lack of rule of law, which were triggered when a train station roof canopy collapsed in Novi Sad and killed 16 people in November 2024. The government’s response to the protests, which included a crackdown on academic freedom, was criticised by the European Commission last November in a damning report on Serbia’s accession progress, which cited “worrying developments” where the government “interfered with the institutional autonomy of faculties and eroded academic freedom.”

Continuing pressure

Some academics see the pause in research funding as part of a larger pattern of revenge against the academic community, which has been largely supportive of the student anti-government protests.

The latest focus of government pressure on academia has been the University of Belgrade, whose rector Vladan Đokić has emerged as a potential candidate to lead the student-backed political opposition to the government. After a police raid of the rectorate in late March, which was broadcast live on a pro-government TV channel, Đokić told the media in Serbia he would accept the nomination to lead a student-backed political option at the next election, but is not officially a political candidate yet.

Đokić was in Brussels in late April to meet the European commissioner responsible for enlargement, Marta Kos, which ruffled feathers in Belgrade. A day later, Prime Minister Đuro Macut summoned the EU ambassador Serbia, Andreas von Beckerath, to talk about the need to “harmonise” messages coming out of Serbian academia and “raising the culture of media dialogue,” according to media reports.

The police raid was officially about a death of student in the philosophy faculty, but Đokić said a broader search of rectorate offices, which resulted in computers and servers being seized, was more about intimidation. “This is an attack on the idea that there may be anything in Serbia that the government cannot control,” he said in a statement. “The university is the last institution still standing upright. That is the reason why they came.” 

University groups in Europe, such as the Coimbra Group and Circle U, expressed solidarity with the university following the raid.

What next for the fund?

Many in Serbia are pessimistic about the fund’s future. Vladimir Mihić, associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Novi Sad, says the Ideas 2024 call will likely be cancelled because the government does not want the money to go to the “rebellious academic community.” 

Given that the EU part-finances the fund, it would be difficult for the government to justify using the money to fund its supporters, who in any case a thin on the ground in academia. So, Mihić says, it’s easier for the government simply to withhold the money for now.

He also notes that eNauka, the national register of researchers and scientific results that is used for research evaluation, has been inactive for weeks, again with no explanation. Science|Business understands that the government has let the contract with the University of Belgrade Computing Center for the technical upkeep of the site lapse and that this has led to the site blackouts.

Taken together with previous government moves, such as restricting the time university lecturers can spend on research to just one hour per day, the attempt to restrict the fund means that the “government is openly working on the destruction of the entire academic community in Serbia,” says Mihić.

The Serbian ministry of science has not responded to requests for comment.

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Vladan Čokić, research professor at the University of Belgrade and a member of the Academic Solidarity and Engagement Network, says that without the fund’s grants, researchers are left to depend on international grants. However, it is increasingly hard for them to submit competitive bids for these grants due to government policies that undermine academia, such as cuts to allowed research time, issues with the autonomy and integrity of universities, and low general funding for research.

Katarina Popović, professor of adult learning at the University of Belgrade, describes the situation as “bad,” especially given that the fund’s calls were a substantial source of income for the university. She says they were crucial at a time when EU funds are also working with lower budgets and higher competition.

Looking beyond the current call, Isailović also questions the fund’s long-term sustainability, given its reliance on transient grants and loans, rather than national budgets as is customary for such funds elsewhere. 

Igor Stanković, principal researcher at the Institute of Physics in Belgrade, also sees this as one of the main limitations of the fund. “At the time when the source of financing from loans has dried up, it seems logical that national projects also come to a standstill,” he says, adding that a similar dynamic can be observed in the applied science projects through the Serbia Accelerating Innovation and Growth Entrepreneurship Project, which has also received EU pre-accession funds, to the tune of €41.5 million in addition to World Bank loans.

Science|Business approached the World Bank and European Commission for comment, but neither was able to respond by the time of publication.