21. Feb. 2011

The international project (WBC & EU) was a big success.

The WINS-ICT project formally ended in December 2010. This initiative has been coordinated by ZSI and has grouped 15 organisations, both from the Western Balkan Countries (WBC) and the EU, with the aim to enhance S&T cooperation between the two geographical areas by deepening the bi-regional strategic relations in the field of ICT and promoting the participation of WB ICT research actors in FP 7.

During two years the activities ranged from the political dimension to the provision of support to the WB ICT research community and its promotion towards possible EU counterparts. A precise analysis of the project results and final statistics is still ongoing. However ZSI, together with the project consortium as a whole, can surely claim to have concluded its work with success. The project has namely managed to organise a total of 14 training and mentoring workshops involving about 400 participants, several networking and brokerage events, moreover allowed 51 WB organisations to get expressions of interest for concrete future cooperation perspectives and more than 20 organisations to enter forming consortia.
WB ICT priorities and barriers have been also consolidated within a series of six consultation workshops, while several analytical documents were drafted as for instance the deliverables dealing with the WBC participation in FP7-ICT or the national policies and strategies in the field of ICT RTD in the WB region.

Finally in November 2010 the project has directly supported the organisation of the “Forum on Research for Innovation in ICT for the Western Balkan Countries” representing a new sustainable dialogue platform for deputy ministers, state secretaries, and other similar-level officials from the WB and neighbouring countries, aimed at fostering the debate on reciprocal challenges and policy measures. The Forum of November led to the adoption of a joint declaration and a provisional roadmap. These are the first milestones for a stable coordination body to drive forward the political agenda for ICT research, in terms of intra-regional cooperation, for a greater WB integration into the European Research Area.

For more information about WINS-ICT please contact the project coordinator, Ms Désirée Pecarz:
pecarz@zsi.at or visit the website of the project.

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• Project: Western Balkan countries INCO-NET Support in the field of ICT

Tags: internationalisation