MASINSKI FAKULTET - UNIVERZITETA UИСУ

Their core work

The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Niš is a Serbian university department that serves as a national EURAXESS service centre, supporting researcher mobility across Europe. Their H2020 work focuses entirely on helping researchers navigate career development, cross-border mobility, job opportunities, and social integration — particularly for vulnerable groups like refugee scientists. While their core academic mission is mechanical engineering, their EU-funded role is as a service provider connecting Serbian researchers with European opportunities and welcoming incoming researchers to Serbia.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their early H2020 involvement (2015–2018) focused on core EURAXESS service delivery: researcher mobility, career development, gender equality, and industry engagement. From 2018 onward, their scope broadened to include socially sensitive topics — refugee researcher integration (BRiDGE II) and the piloting of new EURAXESS talent hub models. This shift signals a move from routine service provision toward addressing more complex societal challenges within the researcher mobility space.

Moving toward more inclusive, socially-oriented researcher support models — a good partner for projects addressing brain circulation, diaspora engagement, or researcher integration in widening countries.

How they like to work

They participate exclusively as a partner in large, pan-European coordination actions — never as coordinator. With 51 unique partners across 39 countries from just 4 projects, they operate within the broad EURAXESS network structure where many national service centres join the same consortium. This means they are well-connected but as a network node rather than a project driver; expect a reliable delivery partner, not a consortium leader.

Exceptionally wide geographic reach for their project count — 51 partners in 39 countries — but this reflects the pan-European EURAXESS network structure rather than self-built bilateral partnerships. Their network spans virtually all EU and associated countries.

What sets them apart

As one of Serbia's EURAXESS service centres embedded in a technical university, they offer a direct bridge between European researcher mobility programmes and the Serbian academic and industrial ecosystem. Their BRiDGE II involvement shows willingness to work on sensitive social inclusion topics that many technical institutions avoid. For consortium builders targeting Western Balkans widening or researcher integration themes, they provide both the institutional credibility of a university and practical experience running mobility services on the ground.

Highlights from their portfolio

• BRiDGE II
  Uniquely focused on refugee researcher integration — a socially important and relatively rare topic in H2020, showing the faculty's reach beyond standard mobility services.
• EURAXESS Hubs
  Their most recent project (2021–2022), piloting a new talent hub model that represents the evolution of EURAXESS services beyond traditional information provision.