On December 12 and 13, 2016 the Rectors of Slovak universities met at their 79th meeting at Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. The meeting was joined by the Minister of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, Peter Plavčan, with whom the Slovak Rectors´ Conference (SRK) discussed the proposal of the next year budget for public universities and its allocation, as well as the objectives of the National programme for the development of education and training at Slovak universities.

SRK considers the National programme´s proposal of main goals in education as an important framework and a conceptual document, and therefore the members of SRK will address and discuss the material again at their next meeting in January 2017. By this time SRK has emphasized the need to align the stated objectives with the results of the current and profound social, economic and cultural needs analysis of the Slovak society, which, however, shall the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic yet to submit.

The rectors have also discussed other important issues, such as the initiative of the Ministry to establish a system for the evaluation of research and artistic activities at universities based on the British model of assessment of the RAE/REF, the current state of the funding of university sport, as well as the problem of identifying predatory publishers.