Need Assessment – Meeting at the Belgrade University Faculty of Law on 18 April, 2019

The Project Team held a meeting at the Belgrade University Faculty of Law on 18 April, 2019, at which the results of the needs analysis were presented. The meeting was attended by the representatives of the national partners: The University of Novi Sad, The University of Belgrade and The University of Niš, The Public Policy Secretariat of the Republic of Serbia, FREN and SeConS.

Milica Vukelić, PhD. Assist. Prof. at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade presented the results of the needs analysis related to educational programs. This analysis was carried out by the method of semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with the representatives of ministries, non-governmental organizations and business sector. Main findings of this analysis show that potential training beneficiaries among civil servants prefer short training sessions related to topics directly applicable in every day work, and that they show less interest in long-term trainings (lasting for several weeks or months). On the contrary, the representatives of non-governmental organizations express great interest in training programs in the field of public policies, both short-term ones, directed to individual business areas, and long-term ones, with more theoretical content.

Darko Dimovski, PhD and Aleksandar Mojašević, PhD from the University of Niš Faculty of Law presented the results of the needs analysis of the representatives of local self-governments related to trainings in the field of public policies. The interviews conducted in several municipalities in Central and South Serbia show that there is an interest in trainings related to some areas of public policies, while the form and the duration of trainings remain the subject of further research.

Zorana Lužanin, PhD from the University of Novi Sad Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics presented the program related to testing of basic knowledge on public policies. This poll was supposed to help the creators of future programs related to public policies, in order to enable them clearer insight into the knowledge level of potential training beneficiaries.

Finally, Branko Radulović, PhD from the Faculty of Law in Belgrade presented the overview of courses on public policies which exist at different European and American universities.