Since the beginning of this year, the University of Novi Sad has received more than half a billion dinars solely from the current budget reserve.
Specifically, the latest issue of the Official Gazette published a decision on the use of the current budget reserve under which the university was allocated 153.6 million dinars. According to the decision, the reason was “to provide the missing funds required to finance the fixed costs of higher education institutions that are of public interest”.
In addition, the Government allocated a further 66.4 million dinars to support higher education colleges, although it did not specify exactly which institutions would receive the funds.
Nearly 400 million dinars in January
This is not the first time the state has transferred money to the Novi Sad university through the current budget reserve. It already did so at the end of January, when the same educational institution received 379.3 million dinars through this mechanism. At that time, the money was allocated “to provide the missing funds required to reimburse the material expenses of institutions within the University of Novi Sad”.
A few days after this decision, the same university announced a tender for accommodation on Kopaonik for 450 top-performing students. The students were selected through an internal competition, and a ski school was organised for them at Kopaonik.
According to Serbia’s Public Procurement Portal, the contract was awarded to a consortium led by Supernova Travel. The tender was titled “recreational and educational activities for the best students of the University of Novi Sad”. Its final value amounted to 39.8 million dinars.
In addition to these two allocations, a decision on the use of the current budget reserve issued at the end of April this year opened a new appropriation – namely for current repairs and maintenance in support of the work of the University of Novi Sad.
In cases where a new appropriation is opened, only 1,000 dinars are initially allocated from the budget reserve. That was also the case here.
How other universities in Serbia fared
A review of all Official Gazettes published this year, specifically all decisions concerning the use of the current budget reserve, shows that no other university in Serbia received funds in this manner. Serbia has six universities: in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, Kragujevac, Novi Pazar, as well as the University of Priština with its temporary seat in North Mitrovica.
Incidentally, from 1 January this year, higher education institutions moved to a centralised payment system. According to the announcement by the Ministry of Finance of Serbia, this measure increases transparency in payments by clearly separating budgetary funds from the income institutions generate independently.
(Forbes Serbia, 26.05.2026)
https://forbes.n1info.rs/novac/univerzitetu-u-novom-sadu-pola-milijarde-dinara-iz-budzetske-rezerve/