In 2024–25, Serbia’s leaderless, decentralised, nonviolent student movement made a rare thing happen: it made fear change sides. In 2026, the government has shifted from managing crowds to tightening procedural control, targeting the institutions that sheltered resistance. Universities, argues Marina Milić, are now the frontline rebels – disciplined through labour rules and a financial ‘kill switch’
On 1 November 2024, a railway station canopy in Novi Sad, Serbia, collapsed, killing 16 people. The tragedy triggered a mobilisation that continues to this day, though with reduced intensity. What began as a demand for accountability widened into a broader revolt against corruption, impunity, and captured institutions. The student movement spearheaded the uprising across Serbia. Without a single leader to target or co-opt, however, students are making decisions in plenums, through direct democracy.
Decentralisation and the absence of a leader made the movement resilient. It also made it difficult to bargain with. The state’s response therefore leaned on crisis management. It delegitimised protesters, stalled events through bureaucracy, applied selective pressure and repression, and waited for exhaustion. The resulting impasse – and the broader political and social crisis it exposed – led the students’ initially varied demands to converge on a single exit: snap parliamentary elections.
The state's response to student protests in Serbia has been to stall events through bureaucracy and applied selective repression, and then to wait for exhaustion
Universities matter because they gave the protest cycle infrastructure (spaces, networks, expertise) and legitimacy (trusted voices, public reason). But that also made them an easy target. In March 2025, Serbia’s government adopted a regulation capping academics’ research time at five hours per week – down from a longstanding ‘20/20’ split, i.e., a 40-hour working week divided into 20 hours for research and 20 hours for teaching-related duties. Critics warned it would push scholars out of international projects and turn research into an after-hours hobby.
The change also enabled a quieter sanction. If research formally counts for only five hours, authorities could present cutting salaries for staff who joined blockades or suspended teaching as simple compliance with work norms. Solidarity is punished, but the punishment looks merely 'administrative'.
In 2026, the regime’s playbook is moving from disciplining individuals to controlling systems. From 1 January, higher education institutions have been required to start entering SPIRI – the Treasury’s System for preparation, execution, accounting and reporting – which routes payments through a centralised state framework. Faculties and deans warned that closing faculty accounts and centralising cash flow gives the government power over universities’ day-to-day survival. Delays or freezes can quietly paralyse teaching and research.
This is why academics describe SPIRI as a 'kill switch'. A university can generally survive a single police raid, but it collapses when wages, utilities, procurement, and project funds stop moving. And authorities can of course deny such financial pressure, claiming money is simply 'stuck in the system' as opposed to 'blocked'.
Centralising cashflow in higher education institutions gives the government power over universities’ day-to-day survival. Delays or freezes can quietly paralyse teaching and research
The same logic appears beyond campuses. In early 2026, judges and prosecutors protested new laws they say weaken judicial independence. The EU, meanwhile, said it was reassessing Serbia’s Growth Plan funding because reforms are 'eroding trust' in rule of law commitments.
Procedural pressure does not replace intimidation; it reframes it. In March 2025, Natalija Jovanović, dean of the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, was attacked with a knife during a protest. The episode became a symbol of how public vilification can spill into physical danger. A year later, on 31 March 2026, criminal police entered the University of Belgrade Rectorate, triggering a protest and clashes outside the building. The episode showed that pressure on universities in Serbia now extends beyond regulation and funding into direct challenges to institutional autonomy.
Pressure also travels down the hierarchy. This results in contract non-renewals, disciplinary proceedings, stalled promotions, and selective enforcement of rules on ‘orderly’ teaching. Reports suggest that many secondary school teachers were denied contract renewals, with around 100 dismissals in September 2025. The most high-profile case is the University of Novi Pazar, which failed to renew the contracts of roughly 30 staff. There were also allegations that some scholars were stripped of student status.
Academic staff who back the protesting students have been targeted by hostile media. They may also face contract non-renewals, disciplinary proceedings, and stalled promotions
The deeper fear is that these ad hoc tactics will harden into a system for removing 'undesirable' academics. For now, the playbook is repetitive and personalised: wait for a contract or reappointment deadline, then quietly withhold renewal. This was the case with Jelena Kleut and with two professors at the Faculty of Medicine. Full professors are harder to remove because they no longer cycle through reappointments. The real pressure point is everyone below them: associate and assistant professors, and teaching assistants. These people can be taken out at the next routine tick of the appointment clock, especially if they expressed solidarity with the students.
Serbia is not Hungary. But, as Andrea Pető explored in this ⛓️ series, Hungary offers a cautionary tale about how governments can reshape higher education through law and governance rather than riot police. In 2020, the EU Court of Justice ruled that Hungary’s Lex CEU – legislation that helped force Central European University to relocate US-accredited programmes from Budapest – breached EU law and protections for academic freedom. The judgment, however, came too late to avoid institutional damage.
The academic coalition often described as Pobunjeni univerzitet (Rebellious university) has responded by protesting, identifying the levers of pressure, and demanding their removal. It wants the government to:
The government met one demand in June 2025, when it disbanded the relevant working group. But the broader struggle is over whether autonomy is a constitutional principle, or a privilege that can be switched off when inconvenient.
The next protest cycle will not be decided only in the streets. It will be decided in payroll systems, treasury software, appointment procedures, and the slow violence of administrative delay. If fear changed sides in 2024–25, the question for 2026 is whether institutions can change sides – before they too are engineered into silence.
⛓️ No.14 in a Loop series examining constraints on academic freedom in a variety of global contexts
