University of Sarajevo Records Significant Scientific Results Despite the COVID-19 Pandemic

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Although the buildings of faculties, academies, and institutes of the University of Sarajevo, once bustling with student life, hurried footsteps, and the sounds of musical instruments, now give an impression of abandonment, teachers and students are largely collaborating via online platforms, thus creating a new form of academic community by moving student life, hurried footsteps, and the sounds of musical instruments to online platforms. Teaching is proceeding in a modified regime, the media are interested in new ways of knowledge transfer in these extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic, and columns and blogs are filled with student comments about teaching.

However, scientific research, which is also a significant segment of the university's mission, is not losing momentum in these times, nor has it ever stopped, although it might seem so at first glance. Numbers speak in favor of development, not a downward trend. University teachers and associates achieved commendable results in publishing research findings in the first quarter, i.e., the first three and a half months of this year. Looking at the data in the multidisciplinary index database SCOPUS, it is evident that authors from the University of Sarajevo published 210 scientific papers in the first three months of this year, which represents 43% of the total production of all papers indexed in 2019. In other words, in the first three months of 2020, almost half of the papers from the entire last year were published. Researchers from the field of technical sciences are leading in publishing (131 papers), followed by researchers from the fields of chemical engineering, medicine, mathematics, biochemistry, agriculture, and social sciences. In terms of co-authorship, joint research with colleagues from Serbia (29 papers) leads, followed by Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, the United States of America, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom.

As for the indexing of papers in the Web of Science database, there are 68 such papers, which represents a similar publishing rhythm as last year in the same period, and no decline was recorded. The rhythm was maintained despite the extraordinary circumstances. Papers from mathematics, economics, medicine, and agronomy are the most represented. 

Regarding the very current topic of the pandemic caused by the spread of the coronavirus, it is interesting to highlight the paper titled 'A Novel Cellular Automata Classifier for COVID-19 Prediction' by an Indian research team, which addresses indirect trends in the spread of the epidemic in India. It was published in the Journal of Health Studies, published by the Faculty of Health Studies of the University of Sarajevo. This paper was published on March 29 and was downloaded 75 times in the following three days, and 223 times to date, which is a significant achievement considering that a Bosnian-Herzegovinian journal attracted the attention of researchers alongside dominant journals published by research centers in Western Europe and the USA. You can see more at the link https://www.jhsci.ba/ojs/index.php/jhsci/article/view/907.

The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Sarajevo has also actively joined the fight against the spread of the coronavirus. To speed up the production of protective equipment, through the UNDP project "Economic Governance for Growth – EGG," funded by the Government of the Kingdom of Norway, additional equipment was procured for the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Sarajevo. This equipment includes four new 3D printers, filaments and raw materials for the production of protective equipment, as well as a machine for testing the mechanical properties of materials. In this way, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering has become involved in the production of protective equipment. They started with the production of protective visors and can also produce mask straps and connectors for respirators if the need arises. Although the equipment will primarily be used for the production of protective visors within the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, after the crisis, it will be used to equip the Laboratory for Testing Polymer Materials, which will serve for teaching, research, innovation, and development. You can see more at the link https://mef.unsa.ba/bs/novosti/60.

Interdisciplinarity is also present in these circumstances, and it is interesting to highlight the collaboration between our archaeologists and geneticists. Namely, the Institute for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (INGEB) of the University of Sarajevo has published the results of the latest archaeogenetic analyses of a site near Visoko, which provide a completely new picture of the groups that inhabited these areas in prehistoric times. Our geneticists have achieved a great scientific success, as it involves the successful isolation and analysis of biological material up to 2,500 years old (from the 4th century BCE). You can read more about this research at the link: http://www.federalna.ba/bhs/vijest/313953/otkrice-bh-naucnika.

In the midst of the pandemic, the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences became a member of the international consortium for the H2020 project called SMARTWATER – Promoting SMART agricultural WATER management in BiH, which will be implemented over the next two years under the leadership of the University of Banja Luka. The project will create a large number of different joint activities that promote networking, joint research experiments, research collaboration, and knowledge exchange between experts in specific fields. All activities will be in line with the national research strategy, including smart technologies (cloud-based and remote sensing) in water resource management in agriculture, optimization of the water-energy-food nexus, and climate change adaptation measures. 

With this overview, we intend to provide insight into the new university daily life and open space for the presentation of our activities and contributions to scientific, artistic, and other creativity within the social community in which we operate.