Biotechnical Faculty Implemented about 50 Research Projects for the Last Five Years
The Biotechnical Faculty of the University of Montenegro is the oldest scientific research institution in Montenegro and during its 83 years of existence it has undergone numerous development phases and organizational changes.
Vice Dean for Science of this faculty Sanja Radonjić, PhD, says that it functioned for the longest as the Agricultural Institute (until 1997), when it was renamed the Biotechnical Institute.
"After starting studies in the field of agriculture and obtaining status of a higher education institution in 2008, it was transformed into the Biotechnical Faculty. There are three main activities of the Faculty: teaching-educational, scientific-research and professional-advisory," Radonjić says.
Today, she adds, the Biotechnical Faculty boasts good research capacity.
"This primarily refers to enviable number of scientific research staff who are trained for research in almost all areas of agriculture and forestry, as well as good equipment of our laboratories where much of the research is carried out. Deeply aware of importance and role that science and research have for development of agriculture and society as a whole and the necessity for constant progress and development in this field, researchers from the Biotechnical Faculty are involved in numerous national and international projects through elementary and applied research, “Radonjic said.
An inseparable part of scientific research is international cooperation that the Biotechnical Faculty successfully achieves with numerous related institutions from the surrounding countries and the EU.
"In the last five years alone, about 50 research projects (national, bilateral, FP7, HERIC, COST, ERASMUS, HORIZON 2020) have been successfully implemented and over 150 papers have been published in journals on relevant international citation lists. Numerous papers have been published in other international and national scientific journals, " Radonjic said.
According to her, in the current 2019/20, the Faculty has 24 active international projects, 10 bilateral and five national projects. "In the structure of international projects, two are from the HORIZON 2020 program, three from the Erasmus + program and seven from the COST action. In the realization of these, but also other projects, more than 30 teachers and associates participate as managers and members of working teams ", Radonjić says.Seven doctoral dissertations in the field of plant and animal production are now being implemented at the Faculty, and research is being conducted in Montenegro and partner institutions abroad. "As an extremely important segment of scientific research, the foundations of which were established by previous generations of researchers, led by three academicians Milorad Mijušković, Ljubo Pavićević and Marko Ulućević, and respecting everything they have done, we want to point out with special pride that our scientific journal Agriculture and Forestry, which has been published since 1955, has been in the SCOPUS citation database since March 2019. In four issues that are published annually, papers are published by both our and numerous researchers from abroad, “Vice Dean Radonjić said. The Biotechnical Faculty, in cooperation with the Faculty of Architecture and Philosophy (Geography study program), organized recently concluded international conference GEA (Geo Eco-Eco Agro), at which more than 200 scientific papers from 40 countries around the world were presented. "Since agriculture and food production are recognized as one of the most important strategic priorities listed in numerous strategic documents of Montenegro, improving scientific activities of students in master's and doctoral studies and increased participation in projects funded by EU funds, in order to increase the visibility of the Biotechnical Faculty in the European Research Area, is one of our main tasks. This is, among other things, stated in the recently adopted Development Strategy of the Biotechnical Faculty (2020-2024) ", Radonjić concludes.