On this page

1. New technologies in support of creativity and innovation

2. Facilitating access to culture through new technologies

New technologies in support of creativity and innovation

Digitalisation in education represents one of the strategic priorities of the Government of the Republic of Serbia. It has been implemented through the three main set of activities: 

• Building human and institutional capacities;
• Equipping schools with ICT infrastructure and providing them with the Internet access;
• Establishment of electronic services (JISP, E-Dnevnik, digital textbooks, etc...).

Digital education is embedded in the Strategy for the development of education and upbringing in the Republic of Serbia until 2030 adopted in 2021. The main pillars of the Strategy include: 

• Development of a unified information system of education (JISP),
• Improvement of ICT infrastructure,
• Strengthening the capacity of schools for development planning with a focus on digital transformation,
• Improvement of students' digital competences through the application of innovative teaching and learning programs,
• Improvement of digital and pedagogical competences of teachers
• Research and improvement of evaluation and monitoring systems in the field of digital education

Strengthening the capacity of schools for development planning is based on a comprehensive approach and an analytical framework which includes the following areas:

• Management,
• Infrastructure and equipment,
• Continuous professional development,
• Teaching and learning,
• Assessment and
• Digital competence of students.

Digital competences of students are being developed at all levels of education including pre-school, primary, secondary and high education. Support in developing digital skills in the pre-school education is provided through the use of the didactic tool "Bee-bot". Currently 116,000 pupils in the first and second grade of primary education study “Digital World” as mandatory subject. Curricula for the third and fourth grade is under development. Students in the Republic of Serbia start learning Informatics since 5^th grade. In some high schools, students with interests in informatics are grouped in special classes. Other high school students have the opportunity to choose between 6 multidisciplinary courses aimed at functionalizing knowledge and strengthening digital competencies. Dual educational profiles also contain subjects aimed at enhancing ICT skills, being increasingly popular among secondary school students. Following the principles of the Smart Specialisation Strategy, development of digital skills is embedded in the system of higher education. In cooperation with the Digital Serbia Initiative, The Master 4.0 programs were jointly created by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Faculty of Organizational Sciences of the University of Belgrade, the University of Kragujevac, the University of Niš, as well as the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics from Belgrade. 

Digital competences of teachers have been also developed through various support measures provided by the Ministry of Education and the Institute for improving the quality of education and upbringing. The Ministry of Education has prepared the Framework of Digital Competences of Teachers - Teacher for the Digital Age 2019, which includes digital competencies relevant for teachers. The framework contains 24 competencies organized into 6 categories.

Facilitating access to culture through new technologies

The  Ministry of Information and Telecommunications encourages the development of the information society through programmes and projects under the common slogan "Smart and Safe". The aim of these activities is to educate and raise awareness of the need for prompt, proper and targeted involvement of citizens, the education system and the economy in modern digital streams. Under the „Smart and Safe“ platform, users are provided with the useful educational content including advisory support for parents, teachers and youth population. It also contains a digital library section, digital knowledge quiz for youth (below 8 years old, 9-13 years and above 13 years), and provides possibility to report digital violence activities.  Additionally, the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications supported the project of connecting 19 key cultural institutions to the academic Network of the Republic of Serbia - AMRES, as well as equipping the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts to raise its digital capacities.

Being recognised as one of the strategic priorities in the field of culture adopted by the Serbian Government in 2021, Digitisation of Cultural Heritage has been initiated by the Ministry of Culture with the strategic support of Microsoft Serbia. The aim is to present to the general public including young people, a variety of digitized collections and to provide information on heritage held by libraries, archives, museums, galleries, institutes for the protection of monuments and other cultural entities. 

The National Center for Digitization (NCD), the consortium which gathers Mathematical institute Belgrade, National Library of Serbia, National Museum Belgrade, Archaeological Institute Belgrade, Archives of Republic Serbia, Serbian Institute for Monument Protection, and Mathematical faculty Belgrade, has been established in 2002, although does not yet have the status of an official institution. However, the process of digitisation of the Serbian cultural heritage is ongoing. The audience already have the opportunity to access various old cyrillic manuscripts, the  rare books, newspaper and magazine collections, cartographic materials, engravings and art materials, photo and phono documentation, musicals, catalogs, bibliographies and many other artworks. The main activities of the NCD are:

• Organisation of the annual national conferences "New Technologies and Standards: Digitization of National Heritage",
• Publication of the journal "Review of the National Center for Digitization", published both on paper and in electronic form,
• Establishing, at the national level, proposals for a basic set of standards in the area of digitization of cultural and scientific heritage, 
• Developing models of the appropriate distributed information systems and specific software for the realization of the digitization standards,
• Collaboration with the similar institutions from abroad, particularly with the South-Eastern European Digitization Initiative (SEEDI).

The most important sources of Serbian digital heritage include as follows: 

• Digital National Library of Serbia
• The Digital Archive of the Publications of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
• Digital resources of the Mathematical Institute of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts

Additionally, under the keyword „Serbia“ within the platform Europeana, there are many documents and illustrations of Serbian digital heritage including art, books, films, music and other pieces of Serbian history and art shared by different cultural institutions. 

The goal of these projects and activities is continuous investment in the information and communication infrastructure of cultural and scientific institutions, in order to enable better work, creation of new services for the audience, more adequate access to younger generations and creation of attractive and interactive contents in the field of cultural heritage and art as well as from the field of contemporary creativity and science.