Compendium 2003 - BIHARNET - Organisational Information

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Form of organisation (x)Separate legal entity of its own
( )Not a legal entity of its own
Name of the parent organisation (in English)  
Relationship with the government ( )Direct: we are a government agency or part of a ministry
( )Indirect: we are controlled by the research and education community
which in itself is (largely) government-funded
( )Both, in some ways. If so, please explain below
( )Other, please explain below
Governing structure The University of Banja Luka, the University “Džemal Bijedić” in Mostar, The University of West Mostar, the University of Sarajevo and the University of Tuzla established BIHARNET-academic and research network and BIHARNET Center on February 12, 1998.When new universities in Srpsko Sarajevo and Bihac have been established they become members of BIHARNET.

The governing structure of the BIHARNET is:
· The Steering Committee is composed of 9 members, appointed by the founders of the Centre. The members of the Steering Committee are university rectors and vice-rectors (7) and representatives of the Ministries for education on entity level (2).
· The Expert Council is composed of the university representatives and external experts
· Director of the BIHARNET Centre
Description on website of governing structure  
NRENs in the EU, the EEA or accession states only: is this organisation a public electronic communications network in the sense of EU Directive 2002/20/EC? ( )Yes
( )No
( )We don't know yet
 
Chief Executive Officer MSc Azemina Vukovic
Director
 
Chief Executive Officer (2)      
 
 
 
Head of the Technical Staff Mr. Edin Silajdzic
CTO jobtitle System Engineer
Email vukovic@bih.net.ba
 
Head of the Technical Staff (2)      
CTO jobtitle  
Email  
 
Contact for information and PR-matters MSc. Azemina Vukovic
jobtitle Director
email vukovic@bih.net.ba

Remarks regarding this section It is very important to stress that universities have been the founders of BIHARNET, not the government, i.e neither on the BiH state level, nor on the level of the Federation of BiH or the Republika Srpska. Any way it is as well worthwhile to emphasise that from the beginning, BIHARNET has been established on the BiH state level, so it always has been and continues to be the only institution of high education, science and culture which is organised on state level. All other responsibilities for academic and cultural communities in BiH reside with the central government of the Republika Srpska, respectively are decided on a cantonal level in the Federation of BiH.
The foundation of BIHARNET and its central administrative and technical unit BIHARNET Centre was made possible in 1998 through a donors' project of the government of the Republic of Slovenia, which has provided all financial resources for the development of the network, technical equipment, staff and telecommunication fees. Even the donor's project was finished on the end of 1999, during the year 2000, Slovenia continued to provide Internet access to BIHARNET with a 2 Mbps international link from Sarajevo to Ljubljana and via ARNES (the Slovenian academic network) connectivity to GEANT. However, the state government of BiH did not pay for these services and consequently, the Slovenian Telecom disconnected BIHARNET entirely. It means that, at the moment, the academic community of BiH is not able to use international connectivity at all.
The end of the donors’ project at the end of 1999 meant that since then no stable and continuous financial resources for BIHARNET and all activities around academic networking in BiH have been provided. The government of the Federation of BiH, sent from time to time some amount of money for BIHARNET running costs as well as for salaries of BIHARNET Center staff. This amount of money was insufficient for the reactivation of the network. Until now, BIHARNET is not incorporated into the budget of entity governments, which means that financial resources for regular work and for the development of the BIHARNET network are still not provided.
The management team of BIHARNET currently is in daily contact with all relevant representatives of BiH ministries. Based on the conclusions of a meeting which took a place in April 2002 and was organized by the Prime Minister, started all activities related to the reorganization and reconstitution of BIHARNET. This reconstitution should boil down to transferring the ownership of BIHARNET from the universities of BiH to the state. It means that for the financial recourses should be responsible Government of the Federation of B&H and Government of Republic of Srpska. Even the process of transferring the ownership should be finished until July 2002 this process is not finished yet.
In meantime BIHARNET made important step forward. BIHARNET Center has moved the offices in the building of Federal Ministry of Education and Republic of Srpska sent (first time) some amount of money to BIHARNET. It is important as political support because it means that Republic of Srpska finally accepted BIHARNET as state network
Based on the explanation the status BIHARNET is not clear. Probably it is the best to say that BIHARNET is in the phase of transfering ownership from universities to governments.