Serbian Probe Finds Flaws in Megatrend University

Serbia's Commission for Accreditation and Quality Assurance said it had detected irregularities at a private college that has been at the centre of plagiarism claims concerning a government minister.

The most important noted flaw is in the field of PhD studies and teaching staff employed at the Belgrade-based Megatrend university.

The college failed to provide the Commission with evidence that its PhD candidates published their work in relevant international journals, which is a condition for defending a thesis.

Vera Vujcic, Vice-President of the Commission, said that the checks were routine and had nothing to do with the alleged plagiarism claims.

“This was just a regular quality check, which started in February. This is a way to help this institution, and we don’t want to be involved in speculation about plagiarism claims,” Vujcic told BIRN on Thursday.

However, the Commission has ordered Megatrend to report on why former rector Mica Jovanovic resigned, and draw up a detailed plan to restore its damaged reputation.

The college has six months to submit the necessary documentation. BIRN asked Megatrend University to respond to the news but it did not do so by the time of publication.

Megatrend hit the news in June when three British-based Serbian academics published an article on the Pescanik.net website claiming that a former student, the Interior Minister, Nebojsa Stefanovic, plagiarized parts of his PhD thesis. The claims then brought Stefanovic’s mentor, Jovanovic, into the spotlight.

A subsequently published article on Pescanik.net claimed that Jovanovic did not obtain his PhD in London, as his official biography asserted.

Jovanovic resigned from Megatrend University after...