Minister Damjanović at COST Connect workshop “Beating Cancer by 2030: Mission Impossible?”

Minister of Science Dr. Sanja Damjanović took part today in the COST Connect conference committed to the future of European cancer research “Beating Cancer by 2030: Mission Impossible?”, which takes place in Brussels.

The conference brought together researchers taking part in 35 COST actions dealing with cancer research, as well as 16 different actors (policy-makers, organisations of cancer patients and business representatives), who exchanged ideas and experiences, discussing the challenges encountered by cancer researches, which should lead to better coordination at the European level. The conference is taking place at the right time, providing a pan-European contribution to the current debates about the Horizon Europe programme, because cancer treatment has been identified as one of the future missions in this future EU framework research and innovation programme.

Minister Damjanović familiarised the scientific COST community with the project of establishing the South East Europe International Institute for Sustainable Technologies (SEEIIST) – “Hadron Cancer Therapy and Biomedical Research with Protons and Heavy Ions”.
On top of promoting the project, this was also an opportunity to initiate different scientific collaborations of importance for the SEEIIST project. Minister Damjanović indicated that SEEIIST project presented a development project for the region of South East Europe, whose implementation would, in addition to patient treatment with state-of-the-art methods, also enable the conduct of attractive research in this important area. All this would additionally contribute to addressing our common societal and economic challenges, one of which is brain drain.

Furthermore, minister Damjanović presented the future steps that are aimed at successful implementation of the project that is now entering its next stage – “Design Study Phase”, thanks to the first financial support of the European Commission – Directorate General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD). In order to mark the transition from the concept phase to design phase, a high-level special event will be organised on 18 September in Montenegro, with Mr. Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation at European Commission, opening the event. The participants of today’s COST Connect workshop were invited to attend the upcoming event in Montenegro.

As part of her visit to Brussels, Minister Damjanović also met with Dr. Ronald de Bruin, Director of the COST Association, with whom she exchanged views and experiences about the participation of Montenegro in the COST programme. In this regard, the interlocutors indicated that significant progress was made in terms of participation of Montenegrin institutions in the programme in the past three years.

Director de Bruin offered full support of COST Association to Montenegro, and it was agreed that the following COST Info Day will take place in September 2019 in Montenegro, just before the SEEIIST Kick-off event scheduled for 18 September, which will, as was confirmed, be attended by the Director of the COST Association.