9.6. CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF ACADEMIC STAFF IN HIGHER EDUCATION

•1 Organizational aspects

The Education Strategy for 2018-2025 aims at improving of the academic development and mobility of universities’ teaching staff and students as one of the measures under the priority II: Improve the content of Higher education. (MOES p.51). The Law on Higher Education provides CPD measures for the academic staff.

Upon their own requests, the academic staff elected to the academic title, every five years are allowed a paid leave for a duration of one year, or unpaid leave for a duration of up to three years for professional development / research in the appropriate scientific or artistic field, or a study stay at an appropriate institution, while its teaching duties have to be reassigned. The conditions to exercise the rights are prescribed by the university statute.

•2 Incentives for Participation in continuing professional development (CPD)

If the professional development and/or the research, is at one of the first hundred universities ranked on the Academic Ranking of World Universities of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, US News and Report, and Times Higher Education Supplement – World University Ranking, in addition to the paid leave, the Ministry for Education and Science covers the costs for accommodation, food, healthcare insurance and travel, if they are not covered by the institution where the residency is taking place or any other institution;

Based on adopted Rulebook, the Ministry for Education and Science covers the costs for travelling, accommodation, fees, and food and the per diems of teachers and associates to participate on international conferences and art gatherings, if they have submitted a scientific paper on the subject matter or a piece of art or project in the filed for which they have been elected. The higher education institutions also entitled to reimbursement of funding used to organise scientific conferences and art gatherings;

The academic staff is entitled to reimbursement of funds paid for publishing papers in journals indexed at the Web of Science or Scopus databases;

In order to encourage greater research paper production, the academic staff (teachers and associates) at higher education institutions who will publish a scientific paper in magazines with an impact factor, referenced in the Thomson Reuters or Scopus databases are entitled to one-time award by the Ministry for Education and Science in the amount of single average net salary paid in the last month in the country;

The Ministry provides access for the teachers and associates elected at public universities to at least one database of papers, upon a proposal of the National Council and the funds for access to the papers database is also provided from the Budget of Republic of North Macedonia.