Outside the Balkans the most famous Balkans department is at SSEES (School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies). It is part of the university of London, and many renowned specialists teach there. Also you have access to a very good library and there are many speakers, publications etc…

http://www.ssees.ucl.ac.uk/

Also you can try Balkan department of the university of Bologna http://www.eng.dpis.unibo.it/PoliticaIstituzioniStoriaEn/Research/ProjectsAndActivities/cecob.htm

You are right that many Balkan departments at universities are closing down. I have a friend that studies in Germany and she said that her department was closing down.

I don’t know why. It is very short sighted.

In the UK, I know that you could also find courses at Oxford and Cambridge. The university of Nottingham would allow you to do a research masters. They specialize in Slovenian studies (as well as Serbian/Croatian).

A few years ago, I’m not sure about now the university of Bradford had an interest in Ex-Yugoslavia, in the area of ‘Peace Studies’

A few other universities have Slavonic or Eastern European departments but mostly they concentrate on other areas such as Czech and Russia.