Digitalna era transformacije univerziteta: Izazovi i prilike za društvene i humanističke nauke / Digital Era of University Transformation: Challenges and Opportunities for Social Sciences and Humanities

The digital era generates extremely complex transformative processes in educational institutions, particularly universities worldwide. We are witnessing a transformation of the entire concept of knowledge and the understanding of its purpose and role. The implementation of digital resources and platforms opens up a whole network of possibilities for greater access to knowledge/information and global connectivity among academic communities. Tools such as online libraries, digital databases, digital archives, and various platforms for virtual collaboration are now available to students and educators. However, with this progress come significant challenges and open questions, especially for the social sciences and humanities. These disciplines face a dilemma: will the digital transformation advance or marginalize them? Digital platforms offer advantages in terms of accessibility and innovation, but they also bring dangers. It is inevitable that digital platforms enable faster access to information and innovative teaching approaches, but they also carry numerous risks for the future of education as a whole. There is an increasing trend of pronounced marginalization of the social sciences and humanities, partly as a consequence of the strong focus on STEM disciplines, which are often at the center of attention due to their technological nature and the profit they generate. Moreover, the hegemony of capital-interest trends, which favor technical and market-oriented approaches to education, threatens the traditional mission of universities as spaces for the development and generation of healthy trends in contextual critical thinking. Profit-oriented concepts of education, supported by neoliberal ideology, focus on technological and market-valuable disciplines, while the social sciences and humanities risk being pushed aside. There is a clear trend of favoring various forms/models of hybrid teaching, which combine online and in-person lectures. The loss of physical interaction can negatively affect the development of critical thinking and dynamic discussion in the social sciences and humanities. At universities that have historically been bastions of critical thinking, neoliberal pressures, and direct attacks on critical/liberatory thought are supported by rapidly growing concepts of exclusively profit-oriented paradigms of rationality. Additionally, the digitalization of education and the digital transformation raise the question of the future of the concept of the "knowledge society," which is increasingly being profaned. In this context, the "knowledge society" becomes a concept losing its authenticity, as knowledge is increasingly used as a means for market prosperity, rather than as a tool for the development of broader societal progress. Controlled neoliberal societies, driven by the hegemony of capital-interest trends, increasingly influence the direction of university development, leading to attacks on critical thought.