Supporting ICT cooperation with South East Europe

SCORE was a Specific Support Action that addressed the need for well-defined future research priorities that enhances scientific and research co-operation between the Western Balkan region and the EU. SCORE addressed specifically the thematic area of Information Communication Technologies (ICT), which corresponded to one of the 10 thematic areas of the FP7s Co-operation Programme.

Objectives and activities of SCORE were to:

• Develop a Strategic ICT Research Agenda for the Western Balkan region that will define the regions ICT research needs and priorities following a broad consultation with affected stakeholder communities  
• Develop a Policy Paper with Recommendations for shaping EU scientific co-operation with the Western Balkan Region in the field of ICT research: 2007-2013. The policy paper provided valuable input for the up-to-date shaping of the FP7’s Co-operation programme and future calls.
• Transfer EU research results and technologies in the identified ICT research priorities /thematic areas in order to familiarise Western Balkan research actors with current research developments and state-of-art technologies in these areas.
• Facilitate the development of networks between research actors within the Western Balkan region and between the region and the EU in order to develop contacts, exchange ideas and pursue joint research collaboration.

Key support activities of SCORE were:

• Consultation with ICT stakeholder communities: a consultation phase with Western Balkan direct and indirect ICT stakeholders was carried out in order to identify the research priorities of the Western Balkan region, in the field of ICT (1 consultation process per country).
• 4 Country Workshops: 4 workshops have been organized, one per Western Balkan Country with the purpose to familiarise local research actors with current developments and state-of-art technologies in the key ICT priorities defined in the Strategic ICT Research Agenda per Country.
• EU-Western Balkan Regional Conference: a closing conference was organised in Belgrade with a two-fold objective: to consolidate the national IST Research Policy Agendas of the Western Balkans and, secondly, put them within a broader Balkan region and European Neighbourhood perspective that allows these countries to learn and benefit from the experience of Accession and Candidate countries of the region in their efforts to align their ICT research policies with or put them in the mainstream of the EU RTD policies.
• Network Facilitation Support: SCORE facilitated the development of networks between EU and Western Balkan ICT research actors through:
  • the SCORE portal, which constituted the key point of reference of the project that effectively supported SCORE activities and facilitated networking among ICT stakeholders.
  • support and follow up of ICT stakeholder communities collaboration activities, and provision of on-demand support
  • providing the Western Balkan ICT stakeholders with targeted EU contacts as well as guidance on how to establish networks during the workshops.

Impact: The identified research priorities fed into the call of the SEE-ERA.NET PLUS which received national funding and EU-cofunding.

Team:

• Magª. Désirée Pecarz (project leader)
• Ing. Bernhard Bauch
• Christian Flury
• Bakk. Maroš Kollár

Section: Research Policy & Development

Partners:

• Belgrade Open School
• Foundation for Higher Education World University Service
• Macedonian Association of Information Technology
• Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje
• Trenkwalder Civet 2000 SHPK
• Planet (Coordinator)
• Planet (Greece), CIVET(Albania), ISSETI (Albania), SUS B&H (Bosnia Herzegovina ), BAIT (Bosnia Herzegovina), ECCF (Macedonia), MASIT (Macedonia), BOS (Serbia), Information Society SCG (Serbia)

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Tags: Balkan, ICT