Minister Damjanović takes part in European Research and Innovation Days 2020

Today, within the leading annual event of the European Commission – “European Research and Innovation Days”, the Minister of Science of Montenegro, Dr. Sanja Damjanović, moderated a panel entitled “Towards an Innovation Agenda for the Western Balkans”. This session was officially opened by Mariya Gabriel, the Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, who spoke inspiringly about the vision for the region, emphasising that the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, Erasmus +, and Creative Europe had shown to have had a great influence in the Western Balkans, as well as that the time had come to further boost that influence by building links between education, business, and research.

At the very beginning of the panel, Minister Damjanović expressed her satisfaction with the opportunity to moderate the session and thanked Commissioner Gabriel for opening the panel dedicated to the Innovation Agenda for the WB region. On that occasion, she pointed out that the Western Balkans was a large and integral part of Europe, but that it needed support for the development of sustainable economies. Damjanović added that she highly appreciated the fact that the region was a strategic priority of the European Commission.

“Accession of our region to the EU framework programmes has proven to be a powerful instrument of systemic change in our countries, giving us special impetus in the development of our national strategies. This is reaffirmed by the fact that all Western Balkan countries are developing their smart specialisation strategies and policies in line with the EU’s priorities for a green, digitalised and socially cohesive Europe, as defined by President von der Leyen.”

The panel also provided a venue for discussion about the achievements to date which resulted from joining these programmes, expectations from the next Horizon Europe Framework Programme, as well as about other recovery measures for the region and the manner in which the challenges and the still-existing gap between East and West could be overcome.

On the first day of this major EC event (22 September), Minister Damjanović also took part in a high-level panel entitled “Geopolitics of Horizon association: from proximity to global”. In addition to Damjanović, the participants of this panel were also the science and innovation ministers of Turkey, Georgia and Canada. The discussion revolved around the benefits of joining the framework programmes of the European Union, their geopolitical reach, the need to adapt approaches, the role of research infrastructure and cooperation in solving global challenges.

On this occasion, Damjanović pointed out, inter alia, that the transformation of Montenegro and strengthening of the Montenegrin innovation ecosystem was becoming clearly visible, indicating that the country was becoming a regional green energy hub – with the already completed major submarine electric cable project built between Montenegro and Italy (EUR 1 billion investment), and the project of the largest solar power plant in the region to date (250 MW), and many wind farms – which visibly contributed to making Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050.

The entire “Towards an Innovation Agenda for the Western Balkans” session, lasting 45 minutes, is available HERE

Video: Towards and Innovation Agenda for the Western Balkans – special session #RiDaysEU – moderated by Minister Damjanović