University of Niš is second largest public educational and research institution in Serbia. It is established in 1965 and currently comprises 13 faculties with 28660 students in all study levels. University of Nis participated in numerous international project activities as a grant holder or project partner (the list of projects can be found at http://www.ni.ac.rs/en).

Project will be operated by the Faculty of Occupational Safety in Niš, a higher education institution with the status of a legal entity within the University of Niš. Faculty of Occupational Safety has one accredited bachelor study program (Occupational and Environmental Protection) and five accredited master programs (Environmental engineering, Occupational safety, Fire safety, Emergency management and the Management of communal systems). Moreover, the Faculty is in the accreditation process for doctoral studies on Occupational and Environmental Safety. Each year the Faculty enrolled more than 300 new students on bachelor studies and more than 70 on master studies. More information can be found at www.znrfak.ni.ac.rs.

Established in 1972, Faculty of Occupational Safety has a long tradition in teaching and research environmental studies and engineering. First students enrolled in newly established study program on environmental engineering in 1991. Research and teaching staff participated effectively in recent higher education reform in Serbia and in introducing new teaching methodologies into university practices. Number of them was actively involved in national sustainable development initiatives (researcher from the Faculty was acting as a team leader for drafting the National sustainable development strategy 2008 – 2017) and many local sustainable development activities in Serbia and Western Balkan region. Courses on sustainable development were introduced in early 2000 and have become a carrying content of reformed curricula. At present, sustainable development contents are studied through the courses “Sustainable Development”, “Environmental sociology”, “Environmental Economics” and “Environmental Health” on bachelor studies, as well as “Local Sustainable Development”, “Industrial Ecology”, “Sustainable Housing” and many more on master study programs.

An important part of the curricula is environmental education and education for sustainable development. The course “Environmental Education” has been taught for more than 30 years. In addition, the Faculty has a long tradition in in-service and adult environmental and sustainable development education.

Project activities will be assigned to the Chair on socio-humanistic sciences in occupational and environmental safety. This Chair is organizational unit established as a team of researchers (six professors and five teaching assistants) and supported by managerial staff accountable for financial and organizational issues.

Role of UNI in the project:

• Coordinate the mapping exercise in Serbia and complete the template.
• Assist in the development of an online platform of resources as well as get familiarised and review the online tool.
• Translate project materials into the national language.
• Contribute to the bi-annual newsletters.
• Provide feedback to the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework.
• Contribute to the dissemination and exploitation of the project outputs, outcomes and future network activities.
• Participate and actively contribute to the discussions generated in regional and annual meetings, seminars and conference.

Operational and financial management:

• The project team will coordinate the above administrative and academic project activities.
• Financial administration will be handled by project team who will liaise internally with the institution’s finance department.