One  year  after  the  Berlin  Western  Balkans  Summit,  the  heads  of  government, foreign ministers and economics ministers of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, FYR of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, as well as Croatia, Slovenia, last year’s host  Germany,  future  hosts  France  and  Italy, representatives  of  the  European Commission  and  the  European  External  Action  Service  and  International Financial  Institutions met  in Vienna on 27 August  2015 for  the  second  Summit Meeting on the Western Balkans in the framework of the 'Berlin process'. 

The Conclusions of the Summit 2015 refer to the following topics of relevance for the Western Balkan countries (but not exclusively): General Progress and the European Perspective, Regional Cooperation and the Solution of Bilateral Disputes, Rule of Law and Good Governance, Fight against Extremism and Radicalisation, Migration, Economic Prosperity and Connectivity, Market integration – Trade Facilitation, Mobility and Joint Growth Initiatives, Youth, Education, Science and Research and Civil Society. 

When speaking about Science and Research, the participating States "welcomed last month’s ‘1st  Joint Science Conference Western Balkans’ in Berlin/Halle recommending to allocate 3% of national GDP for  education,  science  and  research,  and  to  establish  regional  Centres  of Excellence".

The Participants welcomed also "the suggestions to reduce brain drain and to  install a science-politics-society  dialogue  for decision-making taking  into account existing platforms in the field, such as the Steering Platform on Research for  the  Western Balkan  Countries facilitating  the  interaction  among  Western Balkan  Countries,  as  well  as  the online  information Platform  on  Research Technology and Innovation for the Western Balkan Countries (WBC-RTI.INFO)".

Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI) has been working for many years in the field of science and science policy cooperation with Western Balkan countries (among other projects also within WBC-INCO.NET project (closed) and partly within Danube-INCO.NET (running project), it supported the Steering Platform on Research for the Western Balkan countries for many years as Information Office and implements currently the online information platform WBC-RTI.info.

We are happy that the participants of the Summit in Vienna took into account the already existing platforms mentioned above as a good practice examples to build on and worth of further support in the future.

The Austrian Academy of Science has agreed to hold the next round of the ‘Joint Science Conference Western Balkans’ in Vienna. 

More information is available at WBC-RTI.info website. The conclusions are attached below as well.

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