REWARD FOR LOYALTY TO VUČIĆ: Professors Close to the Dean of the Faculty of Sport and Physical Education Received More Than 70 Million Dinars, While Their Colleagues Who Supported Students Lost Their Jobs!

An analysis of calls for project proposals issued by the Provincial Secretariat for Higher Education and Scientific Research for 2025 and 2026 has led the Academic Plenum to establish that more than 70 million dinars were allocated to professors at the Faculty of Sport and Physical Education (DIF) who are close to Dean Patrik Drid.

“Interestingly, none of the heads of the funded projects voted IN FAVOR OF the reports supporting the appointment of their colleagues, Dr. Mladen Mikić and Dr. Jovan Vuković, who consequently lost their jobs, even though both met all the necessary requirements for appointment to the position of assistant professor,” the Academic Plenum stated.

Members of the Academic Plenum added that it was telling that at least eight of the 14 people who received this money had publicly expressed support for Aleksandar Vučić and the Serbian Progressive Party by signing statements between 2017 and 2023.

We are reproducing the Academic Plenum’s statement in full.

“Boris Popović, Borislav Obradović, Ilona Mihajlović, Maja Batez, Milan Cvetković, Nebojša Čokorilo, Patrik Drid and Suzana Poček are the names of those who publicly supported the ruling party at least once during the aforementioned period.

The 32 projects funded by the Provincial Government and awarded to 14 DIF professors represent a disproportionately large number compared with the number of people and projects approved at other faculties.

Furthermore, it is unclear how the project approval committee determined that projects such as ‘The Impact of Dental Hygiene on the Health of DIF Students,’ ‘Yoga and Artificial Intelligence,’ ‘The History of Sports Development in Serbia,’ and others were of exceptional importance for the development of science in Vojvodina. All of this gives rise to justified suspicions that more than 70 million dinars were awarded to DIF professors not because of their expertise and the quality of their projects, but because of their political suitability and closeness to Patrik Drid.

The Academic Plenum publicly asks whether Patrik Drid and the Serbian Progressive Party used this money to buy the support of these professors so that they would vote for Drid’s reappointment as dean and participate in carrying out his plan to get rid of all colleagues who have supported the students,” the statement said.

MORE TOPICS: