The University of Niš was founded in 1965 as a state higher-education institution, is a state-governed educational and research institution that comprises 14 faculties. Most of those faculties have composite structure, i.e. various departments, divisions or majors, offering wide and diversified study and research opportunities at both undergraduate and graduate level, including opportunities to obtain a PhD degree. The University of Niš is a medium-sized, mature and well developed academic community. The teaching process at the University is covered by 1639 teaching staff members and 740 administrative and support staff. In the academic 2019/2020 year, the University of Niš numbers about 28500 students at all study levels. From the foundation until now, 58557 students have graduated, 1347 of them are foreign students; 2528 postgraduates acquired their master’s degree and 1492 candidates defended their doctoral dissertations. Research work is performed at all faculties, in the areas of basic, applied and scientific research. It should be noted that research supports development of science and creativity, improves higher education activities, improves the teaching process, implements improvement of young scientists introducing students to the academic work, as well as providing the resources for work and development of the university as a whole. Research work in the previous period has been carried out through participation of teachers and associates in realization of national and international research projects, publishing papers in academic journals and attending academic seminars in the country and abroad. Activities financed by Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia represent the basic form of research work at the faculties, and considerable funding resource. Great numbers of faculty teachers and associates have been participating in projects of this kind. Most of faculties are, within their own organizational units, research labs and innovation centers, providing professional and technical support as well as other scientific research related services, which has established cooperation with the economy sector. One of the leading principles of the University of Niš is to become part of the European higher education area and to adjust its plans and study programs against this aim, in the context of the reform of higher education system within the EU projects and other programs.
UNI has significant experience in international programs such as Tempus, Erasmus, FP6 and FP7. Within the EM ECW program, the University of Niš entered the exchange of students and teaching staff in 2008 as a partner in the Project BASILEUS. In 2011, UNI became a consortium member of the Project EM2STEM. University of Niš also became partner of other Erasmus Mundus programmes, such as SIGMA, ERAWEB, EUROWEB. Currently, the University is involved in the following programs: ERASMUS+, EUROWEB+, GREENTECH, CEEPUS and HORIZON 2020.