They also stressed that some issues in the Slovenian higher education system required a systemic solution.

The chancellors said they were working on criteria for accepting new universities into their ranks, stressing that the most important criterion had to be quality. “The most important thing is that we all agreed that we need to accept new universities into our ranks by way of consensus rather than voting,” University of Nova Gorica Chancellor Danilo Zavrtanik said.

Chinese universities have recently been pushing aggressively for collaboration with Slovenian universities. “It’s like they almost want to found new Chinese universities in Slovenia. That’s their latest approach. We need a very clearly defined strategy here, one that’s based on mutuality,” University of Ljubljana Chancellor Igor Papič said.

The Slovenian University Chancellors Conference and the Ministry of Education said that they were also exploring ways to simplify the procedure of issuing residence permits to foreign students.