Ilija Ćosić

Ilija Ćosić (Илија Ћосић; born 5 September 1948) is a Serbian academic, engineer, and politician. He is a professor emeritus with the University of Novi Sad. Ćosić has served in the National Assembly of Serbia and the Assembly of Vojvodina and has held high office within the Democratic Party (DS).

Early life and academic career
Ćosić was born in the village of Rivica in Irig, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, in what was then the People's Republic of Serbia in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. He attended elementary school in Irig and secondary school in Ruma and graduated from the University of Novi Sad Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in 1972. He also served in the Yugoslav People's Army in this period, graduating from the School of Reserve Technical Officers in Zagreb in 1973–74.

Ćosić received a master's degree from the University of Novi Sad Faculty of Technical Sciences in 1979 and a Ph.D. from the same institution in 1983. As a graduate student, he spent a considerable amount of time at international universities, including in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Thailand. He became an assistant professor at the University of Novi Sad in 1983, an associate professor in 1988, and a full professor in the field of production systems in 1993. He was dean of the Faculty of Technical Sciences from 1998 to 2014 and was given the title of professor emeritus in 2016.

He has published widely in his field, participated in various scientific-academic projects, and received several academic and civil honours.

Socialist Republic of Serbia
Ćosić became politically active when Serbia was a one-party socialist state. His academic biography indicates that he served in the assembly of Novi Sad from 1978 to 1982 and was a delegate in the Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Serbia from 1984 to 1988.

Republic of Serbia
Ćosić ran for Novi Sad's sixth constituency seat in the 2004 Vojvodina provincial election as a candidate of Together for Vojvodina (ZZT), a multi-party coalition led by the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV). He finished in third place.

He later joined the Democratic Party and was elected for Irig in the 2012 provincial election. The DS and its allies won a majority government, and he supported the administration in the assembly. He served on the committee for the economy and the committee for education, science, culture, youth, and sports. He was not a candidate for re-election in 2016.

Ćosić was elected as president of the Democratic Party's Novi Sad committee in June 2013. He offered to resign after the party's poor performance in the 2014 Serbian parliamentary election, but this was rejected. He ultimately stood down in October 2014.

He was appointed to the Democratic Party's political council in December 2016.