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Faculty of Mathematics

University
of Belgrade
Faculty of Mathematics

Department of Computer Science and Informatics

Department procedures

Procedure for submitting a master's thesis topic

  1. The candidate, in consultation with the mentor, fills in the master's thesis topic proposal form (in LaTeX or Word format) and sends it to the mentor by e-mail (the proposal is not yet entered in Hypatia, the Faculty's online student portal).

  2. After obtaining the consent of the proposed committee members, the mentor e-mails the topic proposal and the proposed committee (as a PDF) to all members of the Department.

  3. If, after three days, there are no objections or comments that cannot easily be addressed, the mentor forwards the comments for the final version of the proposal to the candidate. The candidate prepares the final topic proposal and sends it to the mentor for checking. After checking the final version of the proposal, the mentor gives their final consent and informs the Head of the Department. [If the topic proposal is not accepted by the Department, the procedure returns to step 1 and a new topic proposal is prepared.]

  4. Once the mentor has approved the final topic proposal, the candidate submits the proposal electronically via Hypatia (ideally by submitting the final PDF document directly).

  5. The Head of the Department, after consulting the mentor, who checks that the agreed topic proposal has been submitted, approves the topic proposal via Hypatia. The proposal prepared in this way goes to the Faculty committee for assessing the suitability of master's thesis topics and then (if accepted) to the Teaching and Research Council. Sessions of the Council are usually held once a month, and the proposal must be approved at least two weeks before the Council session.

Guidelines for writing a master's thesis topic proposal

  1. The title of the thesis is important and the mentor should give full attention to its formulation.

  2. The significance of the topic must be highlighted. The first paragraph, together with explanations of the necessary concepts, should explain why the topic is significant.

  3. It is assumed that the proposal is written before work on the thesis begins, although the opposite often happens. Even when the thesis is finished or well advanced, the text of the proposal should formulate the task that the candidate is to carry out (in the future relative to the moment of submission).

  4. The mentor must formulate, or carry out the final editing of, the title and the text of the proposal. Since the mentor also takes part in writing the text, the proposal may be written in impersonal form (e.g. "such-and-such will be done" or "such-and-such should be done" rather than "I will do such-and-such" or "the candidate will do such-and-such").

Master's thesis defence procedure

  1. The prerequisites for scheduling the defence of a master's thesis are:

    • the topic has been accepted by the Teaching and Research Council
    • all grades have been duly entered in the Faculty database (this should be checked by the candidate or the mentor)

  2. When, in consultation with the mentor and the members of the review and defence committee, the thesis is completed and approved by the mentor and the committee members, the mentor and the committee members write the master's thesis review report.

  3. The mentor sends the members of the Department, for consideration, the previously adopted topic proposal, the final version of the thesis, the accompanying materials and the review report (or, preferably, sends a link to these materials on the Internet). The Department has five days to respond and, if there are no major objections, the report is considered accepted by the Department and the procedure may proceed to the next steps.

    If a major objection is raised, there are three options:

    • (a) The mentor responds to the objections and explains to the Department why the thesis is as it is. If there are then no objections, the thesis is considered accepted and the procedure proceeds to step 4.

    • (b) The mentor accepts the objection, a new version of the thesis is prepared and the procedure returns to step 2.

    • (c) The mentor does not accept the objection and a vote is taken on the submitted review report. If the report is accepted by a majority of votes, the procedure proceeds to step 4, otherwise it returns to step 2.

  4. Once the master's thesis and the report have been accepted by the Department, the mentor or the candidate submits to the Legal Office of the Faculty:

    • the printed review report signed by the mentor and the committee members
    • one printed copy of the thesis
    • a copy of the thesis in electronic form

    These materials must be submitted to the Legal Office at least three days before the planned defence.

  5. The mentor receives from the Legal Office the completed materials, including the minutes to be filled in after the defence of the master's thesis.

  6. Before or at the defence itself, the candidate should prepare one printed copy of the thesis for each committee member.

Note: in line with the above procedure, the final version of the thesis and the report should be sent to the Department for consideration at least eight (8) days before the planned defence.

Doctoral studies: enrolment and progression

Enrolment, monitoring of students' progress, mentorship and the procedure for doctoral dissertation topic submission, evaluation and defence are governed by the Regulations on Doctoral Studies of the Faculty of Mathematics (adopted on 3 July 2026, applicable to students enrolled from the academic year 2026/2027) and the Regulations on Doctoral Studies of the University of Belgrade. Both documents are available in Serbian only. The admission requirements, documents and deadlines are published on the Faculty of Mathematics page Admission to doctoral studies (in Serbian, while the Application, Interview and Enrolment guides are also available in English). At Faculty level, enrolment, monitoring of students' progress and work with doctoral students are managed by the Committee for Doctoral Studies, in consultation with the Department.

Study mentor, prospective mentor and dissertation mentor

Before enrolment, prospective students are introduced to the faculty members of the Department through an overview of the scientific areas they cover. Already in the application to the Call, in the form "Scientific area, research group and study mentor", the candidate indicates one or at most two faculty members of the Department with whom they would like to collaborate, thereby also choosing their research area. The form expresses the candidate's interest and is not a proposal of the study mentor.

When enrolling in the first year, the candidate submits a signed proposal of the study mentor (Annex 1 to the Regulations), while the proposal of the prospective mentor is submitted later, before the student enrols in the courses taken with the doctoral dissertation mentor. The roles of the study mentor, the prospective mentor and the dissertation mentor, the requirements they must meet and the way they are appointed and changed are prescribed by the Regulations on Doctoral Studies of the Faculty of Mathematics (Articles 23, 24, 29 and 31–33) and briefly described on the Doctoral studies page, section Mentorship.

Work plans

Before enrolment in each academic year, the student and the study mentor, or the prospective mentor, submit to the Committee for Doctoral Studies a work plan on the forms in Annexes 1, 3 and 4 to the Regulations (Article 28). Enrolment in the next year is not possible without an approved work plan. For each course enrolled in, the student must obtain the consent of the course instructor, and a student may attend and take at most two courses with one instructor (Article 30).

Scientific areas, packages and choice of courses

The research groups and faculty members of the Department recommend packages of elective courses by scientific area, in order to make the choice of courses easier for candidates and to give them a better foundation for work in the chosen scientific area. The packages are a recommendation: the final choice of courses is made by the student with the study mentor within the work plan approved by the Committee for Doctoral Studies, in accordance with the Regulations and the accreditation of the study programme.

Packages

Package: Automated Reasoning

Possible mentors: Predrag Janičić and Filip Marić

Recommended core courses:

  1. Automated Theorem Proving
  2. Interactive Theorem Proving
  3. Selected Topics in Theoretical Computer Science

Recommended: at least one of the following:

  1. Computational Complexity
  2. Constraint Programming
  3. Symbolic Computation
  4. Formal Methods – Advanced Concepts
  5. Semantics of Programming Languages

Other relevant courses:

  1. Machine Learning – Advanced Concepts
  2. Data Mining – Advanced Concepts
  3. Software Development – Advanced Concepts
  4. Computability Theory – Advanced Concepts

Package: Modeling and Optimization

Possible mentors: Vladimir Filipović and Aleksandar Kartelj

Recommended core courses:

  1. Computational Intelligence – Advanced Concepts
  2. Selected Topics in Theoretical Computer Science
  3. Genetic Algorithms

Recommended: at least two of the following:

  1. Machine Learning – Advanced Concepts
  2. Swarm Intelligence
  3. Data Mining – Advanced Concepts
  4. Computational Complexity
  5. Constraint Programming

Other relevant courses:

  1. Software Development – Advanced Concepts
  2. Scripting Languages and Web Programming

Package: Language Technologies

Possible mentors: Jelena Graovac and Staša Vujičić Stanković

Recommended core courses:

  1. Natural Language Processing
  2. Machine Learning – Advanced Concepts
  3. Information Retrieval and Web Mining

Recommended: at least two of the following:

  1. Text Algorithms – Advanced Concepts
  2. Selected Topics in Theoretical Computer Science
  3. Semantic Web
  4. Data Mining – Advanced Concepts
  5. Machine Learning on Graphs

Other relevant courses:

  1. Machine Learning Theory
  2. Big Data Analytics
  3. Reinforcement Learning
  4. Machine Learning in Computer Vision

Doctoral dissertation topic submission, evaluation and defence

The procedure for doctoral dissertation topic submission, the evaluation of the scientific soundness of the topic, the appointment of the mentor and the evaluation and defence of the doctoral dissertation is governed in full by the Regulations on Doctoral Studies of the Faculty of Mathematics (Articles 34–57) and the Regulations on Doctoral Studies of the University of Belgrade (unofficial consolidated text), both available in Serbian only. The topic is submitted on the form in Annex 6 to the Regulations of the Faculty of Mathematics. The deadlines, the composition of the committees, the requirements for the submission of the dissertation (including the requirements for published papers in the Computer Science study programme) and the course of the defence are not repeated here and apply as laid down in the Regulations.

The role of the Department in this procedure is as follows:

  1. The student, in agreement with the prospective mentor, submits the topic with its annexes (Annex 6) to the Department electronically, to the address of the Head of the Department. The Department considers the submission and, if it finds that the formal or substantive requirements are not met, asks the student and the prospective mentor for additions or corrections. In the case of a positive opinion, the Department proposes to the Teaching and Research Council the members of the Committee for the Evaluation of the Scientific Soundness of the Doctoral Dissertation Topic and the Appointment of the Mentor, as well as the doctoral dissertation mentor (Article 35).

  2. After the submission of the doctoral dissertation, the Department considers the material and gives the Teaching and Research Council its opinion and a proposal of the members of the Committee for the Evaluation of the Dissertation (Article 45).

Note for previously enrolled students

The Regulations on Doctoral Studies of the Faculty of Mathematics of 3 July 2026 apply to students enrolled from the academic year 2026/2027 onwards. All procedures initiated before the entry into force of these Regulations may be completed under the rules that were in force before their entry into force, unless a different decision is taken owing to the nature and needs of the procedure. Students enrolled earlier are subject to the rules under which they enrolled, and for details they should contact the Committee for Doctoral Studies.