Kosovo Academics Brace for Proposed Ethnic Land Swaps Hopeful Signs of Cross-Ethnic Cooperation in Research and Education Might Now Be at Risk

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grant programmes by at least 60 days after Planetary scientists have indefinitely postponed One senior scientist at the Environmental the shutdown’s end. a conference on lunar resources that was to have Protection Agency had mixed feelings about Meanwhile, roughly 90 grant-review panels taken place in Columbia, Maryland, from 20 to returning to work, given the uncertainty about scheduled to meet at the NSF this month have 22 February, for instance. future funding and what he sees as the Trump been cancelled, including all those set to take “Despite the recent announcement of a administration’s general hostility to science. place on 28 January, the first day that many of temporary funding measure to open the gov- “The shutdown overlays anxiety about what its employees returned from enforced leave. ernment there is no guarantee that this will we can work on, what we can’t, how our work The NSF also expected to postpone panels become permanent,” co-convenor Clive Neal, a is valued, or more likely not,” he says. scheduled for 29 and 30 January, or to conduct lunar scientist at the University of Notre Dame And not everyone will be made whole. them virtually. in Indiana, wrote to a lunar-science mailing list Although politicians passed a law that guar- Anne Jefferson, a hydrologist at Kent State on 25 January. “Once we know the government antees federal employees back pay to cover University in Ohio, predicts a “frantic scram- is up and running permanently, I will commu- the shutdown period, most government con- ble to get those really urgent and important nicate more about revised dates.” tractors will not be paid for that time. This things done” as government agencies come The shutdown has also dented many category includes most of the workers in the back online. She’ll be revising the syllabus for researchers’ morale, prompting scientists at all NSF’s information-technology department, a hydrology course she’s teaching, to reflect the career stages to rethink working for the federal who last year were converted from employee restoration of federal weather data sets that government. to contractor status. went offline during the shutdown. “I have had a wonderful career at the USDA, “We need Congress to fund the entire gov- But recovery from the closure is complicated and believe in its mission,” says a senior ernment for the remainder of this fiscal year,” by the knowledge that the government could scientist at the US Department of Agriculture. says Jefferson, who receives funding from the be shuttered again on 16 February, if politicians “There used to be a feeling of stability, and now NSF. “Only with dependable, continued invest- cannot resolve an ongoing disagreement about the stability is gone, in addition to eroding ment in federal science, natural-resource man- President Donald Trump’s demands to con- budgets and increasing bureaucratic demands. agement and environmental protection can struct a wall along the US border with Mexico. I know some people will hit the tipping point.” American science move forward.” ■

POLITICS Kosovo academics brace for proposed ethnic land swaps Hopeful signs of cross-ethnic cooperation in research and education might now be at risk.

BY ALTIN RAXHIMI independence from Serbia in 2008 — an act Last year, in a bid to end hostilities, the Serbia never officially recognized. That has left leaders of Serbia and Kosovo proposed a land proposed land swap between Serbia Kosovo’s goal of joining the United Nations, swap in which Preševo Valley in southern and Kosovo, which is designed to as well as Serbia’s ongoing aspirations to join Serbia, where the population is mostly ethnic help end a decades-long ethnic con- the European Union, in limbo — and political Albanian, would join Kosovo — and North Aflict, could threaten rare attempts at multi- tensions and violent clashes have continued. Kosovo, home to Mitrovica, would join Serbia ethnic research collaboration and education. The exchange aims to settle ownership of the remaining areas disputed by the two hostile RETHINKING BORDERS neighbours, but it could also result in academic O cials have proposed the idea of swapping land between Serbia and Kosovo to change borders along institutions finding themselves in a different, ethnic lines. Universities and scientists would be caught up in the swap, leaving their future uncertain. essentially enemy, country. Two institutes in particular, located in the SERBIA North Kosovo Population 7 million ethnically divided city of Mitrovica, have Academics 16,000 brought together researchers and students from both sides, and they now face uncertainty. MONTENEGRO Mitrovica “There is very little cooperation between the two research and education systems, but Priština BULGARIA even that could now be endangered by the land UNESCO OF STATISTICS; AGENCY SERBIA; KOSOVO KOSOVO swaps,” says Dukagjin Pupovci, a mathemati- Preševo Valley Population 1.8 million cian who heads the Kosovo Education Center, Academics 2,900 an educational-policy think-tank in Priština, OFFICE OF THE REPUBLIC STATISTICAL SOURCES: SOURCES: Kosovo’s capital. Kosovo sits between Serbia and Albania ALBANIA Majority ethnic Serbs and is home to people ethnically identified MACEDONIA Majority ethnic Albanians with both regions. A bloody war in the late 20 km Proposed land-swap locations 1990s paved the way for Kosovo to declare

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UK & IRELAND Brexit threatens

ANDREW TESTA/PANOS Irish science Peace and EU have fostered island’s research ecosystem.

BY DECLAN BUTLER

cientists in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are worried that Brexit will upset the island’s research eco- Ssystem, which has benefited from peace and economic growth over the past 20 years. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement — which brought peace to Northern Ireland after three decades of conflict — has fostered a de facto all-island education and research community, A NATO-led force still protects the fragile peace in Kosovo. says Jane Ohlmeyer, a historian at Trinity Col- lege Dublin and co-chair of the Royal Irish (see ‘Rethinking borders’). is a push and support from the international Academy’s cross-border Brexit taskforce, Mitrovica, which lies near the Serbian community. She already has a joint project which is assessing the impacts of Brexit on border, hosts two institutions that would with an Albanian colleague to study local research and higher education. The UK split feel the effects of a land swap keenly. One pollution from old smelters in the area. from the European Union now threatens that is the University of Priština, which, during Another example of cross-ethnic collabora- community, say researchers. the war in 1998–99, fled from Priština to tion is the IBCM, which was split into Serb and Goods and services currently flow freely Mitrovica; it is the only university in Kosovo Albanian campuses when it opened in 2010. between Northern Ireland — part of the United that still teaches in Serbian. The second is Accepting students from both ethnicities was Kingdom — and Ireland, in part because both the English-language International Business considered both pioneering and controver- are members of the EU. But the United King- College–Mitrovica (IBCM) — the only sial. “It was an achievement just having the dom’s looming departure could require customs higher-education institution teaching Serbs students in the same school,” says Yannick du and other border checks. The issue has been a and Albanians under the same roof. Pont, based in Istanbul, who directs a Dutch major sticking point in UK–EU negotiations educational non-governmental organization, because a ‘hard’ border is unpalatable to many A DIVIDED CITY Spark, that managed the IBCM at the time. politicians, citizens and scientists, and would The University of Priština has some In 2016, the school took the integration violate the terms and spirit of the peace agree- 10,000 students across 10 faculties who come further: staff and students from both ethnic- ments. (As Nature went to press, UK politicians here from the wider region and neighbouring ities now work together at both campuses. were scheduled to vote on 29 January on a Brexit countries, boosting the local population to “The last time I had seen Serbs and Albani- withdrawal deal that contains provisions to around 15,000 — and in turn helping the local ans in the same classroom in Kosovo before ensure the border remains open permanently.) economy, says Dušan Radaković, who runs a this was when I was in kindergarten,” says UK and Irish membership of the EU has non-governmental organization in Mitrovica Đokić, aged 54. Nenad Todorović, a public- improved cross-border collaboration because called the Advocacy Center for Democratic relations officer at the IBCM, gives the credit it allows for seamless exchange of personnel, Culture. “The university has turned Mitrovica for the success of the integration to the insti- equipment, reagents and data, says Catherine into a college town: the whole population lives tution’s ban on any talk of politics. “And Eng- Godson, a molecular biologist at University from it,” he says. lish as the teaching language has helped.” It College Dublin. Border restrictions or differ- It has also been a source of confidence for is unclear which country Mitrovica would ences in regulations would stymie this, she says. Kosovo’s Serbs. The university is located in a end up in if the land swap goes ahead, but In turn, cross-border working has helped with Serbian enclave that is still not fully integrated either way, the motivation — even the need community integration and the peace process, into Kosovo and is funded by the Serbian — for multi-ethnic education pioneered by says Ohlmeyer. government: academics get special bonuses the IBCM will disappear. Northern Ireland is especially vulnerable to as an incentive to work there. As a result, the The University of Priština, too, could be Brexit because it is already geographically iso- university teaches in Serbian, and that has at risk. If Mitrovica is officially returned to lated from the rest of the United Kingdom, and encouraged Serb academics to stay. Serbia, it could lose its unique status as a Ser- politically from the south, says Gerry McKenna, It has even set the scene for some of bian bastion within Kosovo. But if it remains a former president of the north’s Ulster Univer- them to start research collaborations with in Kosovo, yet outside Serbian control, the sity who co-chairs the Brexit taskforce with Albanian colleagues. Such collaboration was university will have to apply for Kosovo’s Ohlmeyer. Northern Irish scientists also fre- unheard of for decades, say several local aca- accreditation just to keep running — and quently partner with colleagues in the Republic demics. Jelena Đokić, a technical scientist at Serbian academics are likely to leave. Both in bids for funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 the university who works on environmental options leave academics uncertain about the research programme —and Brexit risks harm- protection, says that if things remain peace- future. “Nobody knows what will happen,” ing these ventures. Labs in Northern Ireland ful, more joint research projects could start says Đokić. “Nobody asks us, and we have are already struggling to recruit non-UK EU in the next couple of years, especially if there no power over such decisions.” ■ nationals, says Godson. ■