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According to the decision of the Agency for Mobility and EU Programs of the Czech Republic, the project HUNTOUR – Development of education in relation to the influence of ongoing climate change to hunting tourism was selected for funding (Erasmus+ Key Activity 2: Strategic Partnerships (KА203)).
The project leader is the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences), and other partners on the project are University of Novi Sad (Faculty of Sciences), University of Helsinki (Ruralia Institute) and National Agricultural Research and Innovation Centre (Hungary). The leader of the project on behalf of the University of Novi Sad is Milosava Matejević, PhD, and other team members are Vladimir Marković, PhD, Zoran Ristić, PhD, Milutin Kovačević, PhD, Igor Ponjiger and Biljana Basarin, PhD (Department of Geography, Tourism and Hotel Management).
The main goal of this project is to support the development of hunting tourism in European countries through the creation of a transnational joint education program for key competencies and skills in implementing adequate and responsible hunting tourism in a sustainable way that is crucial not only for improving the quality of this type of tourism, but also for the protection of wildlife and its habitats.
The expected outcomes of the project are: a scientific publication that would include an analysis of the current situation in selected countries in terms of economic, environmental and social aspects of hunting tourism; open digital education; evaluation of the countries’ potential for the development of hunting tourism; the multiplier effect of measuring the economic impact of hunting tourism on the economy; best practice studies – case studies related to hunting tourism; creating a transnational joint education program for key competencies and skills in implementing adequate and responsible hunting tourism.
The project started in September 2020 and will last for 3 years.
In the next three years, the Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad will implement a significant scientific research project worth about 900,000 Euros, related to the study of hydro-meteorological extremes, floods and droughts.
Due to its complexity, the study of hydro-meteorological extremes is of utmost importance for South East Europe. It has been estimated that as a result of climate change, the hydrological cycle is changing, which could lead to an increased risk of floods – says the head of EXtremeClimTwin project Biljana Basarin, PhD from the Department of Geography, Tourism and Hotel Management (Chair of Physical Geography). – We remember that several devastating floods in Central Europe during the last 20 years were caused by extreme rainfall. The complexity of the relationship between atmospheric conditions, extreme precipitation and floods, together with the observed growing trends, indicate the necessity to improve science and build research capacity in this field and in Serbia.
Losses caused by extreme climatic and hydrological events reached 453 billion Euros, 12 billion euros per year on average, 79,200 Euros per square kilometer or 811 Euros per capita.
The Faculty of Sciences recognized this need and, with the project proposal, successfully applied for a call from the European Union Framework Program for Research and Innovation called Horizon 2020 (H2020-WIDESPREAD-2020-5 Twinning). The project proposal was evaluated with a maximum of 15 points as the best from Serbia. The project will be implemented under the title “Twinning for the advancement of data-driven multidisciplinary research into hydro-climatic extremes to support risk assessment and decision making” (ExtremeClimTwin), and provides the Faculty of Science and partners with almost 900,000 Euros for research capacity building in areas of detection and description of extreme hydro-climatic events.
The partners of the Faculty of Sciences in this project are three outstanding research institutions from the EU: Climate Risk Analysis from Germany, Loughborough University from Great Britain and the Center for International Climate Research from Norway. EU partners will transfer knowledge and research skills by providing training for the research team members at the Faculty of Sciences. Networking with EU partners will be realized at all levels, and such exchange of knowledge is certainly for the benefit of all participants in the project, the wider scientific community and certainly, due to the urgency of the problem, many stakeholders from the non-academic sector. The project is also important for nurturing the potential of young researchers at the Faculty of Sciences and strategically connecting the Faculty with international research institutions through sustainable partnerships and the transfer of knowledge, results and scientific methodologies.
The project starts on November 1, 2020 and will last for 36 months.
According to the Decision of the Agency for EU Mobility Programs of the Republic of Croatia, the financing of the project InAMath – An interdisciplinary approach to mathematical education (Erasmus + Key Activity 2: Strategic Partnerships (KA201)) was approved. The project brought together distinguished educational institutions from the region, from Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.
The project owner is the University of Rijeka (HR), and the University of Novi Sad, i.e. the Faculty of Sciences, is one of the partners in the project. In addition to the University of Novi Sad, the project partners are the Center of Technical Culture Rijeka (HR), Elementary School Nikola Tesla from Rijeka (HR), Elementary School of the Hero Janez Hribar (SLO), University of Primorska (SLO) and University of Mostar (BIH).
The aim of this project is to design educational content that will increase interdisciplinarity in the mathematics education from 1st to 4th grade of primary school and which will be available to all interested users. Project activities include the design and implementation of educational content with primary school students using interdisciplinary methods, the development of teaching materials that will be available to class teachers and subject teachers, as well as teacher education for the preparation and implementation of such activities. The task of the University of Novi Sad is to contribute to the mentioned project activities, and especially to make the connection between mathematics and chemistry and geography more attractive for primary school students.
The project started in September 2020 and will last for three years.
The GRASP project in the field of artificial intelligence, dealt by researchers from the Faculty of Sciences, Novi Sad meets very high and precise criteria of the Science Fund, which finances projects with clear and sustainable goals, a concept and systematic and well-designed methodology.
The research must have a high level of scientific excellence, quality and innovation, and the project “GRASP” (Graphs in Space: Graph Embeddings for Machine Learning on Complex Data) deals with the problems of graphs, i.e. networks, in the “traditional” form of data – table, with special reference to the application of artificial intelligence techniques. Graphs, or networks, are one of the most important ways to understand the world around us. The points (nodes) of a graph can represent entities (e.g. people), while the connections (branches) between points express a relationship or interaction (e.g. acquaintance) between them. In this way, almost every phenomenon, from the level of atoms to galaxy levels, can be modelled in the form of a graph. On the other hand, one of the key operations available on graphs is their transformation into a “traditional” form of data – a table. In a table, entities are represented by rows, while columns indicate attributes that describe entities. If we go back to people, for example, the attributes that describe them can be name, surname, height, weight, etc.
The field of graph embedding deals with ways to transform graphs into tabular form, which is important because it allows the application of “traditional” tabular techniques of artificial intelligence (more precisely, machine learning) and data analysis to achieve insights that would be difficult or impossible by direct observation of networks. For example, by using well-known tabular techniques on an interaction graph of a Facebook user, we can (1) classify users into some categories of interest, (2) identify communities, (3) recommend “friends,” and (4) predict whether two users will interact in the future.
Improving graph mapping techniques in this project will enable researchers and experts from Serbia and the world to apply machine learning and data analysis techniques in areas where this was not previously possible or did not give satisfactory results, primarily in scientific research (e.g. bioinformatics, sociology, economics), but also in technology and industry (eg predictive analysis of energy, telecommunications and transport networks), education (e.g. predictive analytics based on data from e-learning systems), and society in general (e.g. improved/new services of social networking sites, or even new types of social networking that were not possible before).
The project will last for two years, with a budget of over 120 thousand Euros, and the team consists of both experienced and young researchers from the Faculty of Sciences, Novi Sad, with an emphasis on researchers at an early stage of their careers. All participants are employed at the Department of Mathematics and Informatics, the Chair of Computer Science and the Chair of Information Technology and Systems. The project leader is Miloš Radovanović, PhD and the team also includes: Mirjana Ivanović, PhD, Vladimir Kurbalija, PhD, Miloš Savić, PhD, Brankica Bratić, Nemanja Milošević, Dušica Knežević and Aleksandar Tomčić.
