EU's Horizon 2020 program presented in Belgrade

EU's Horizon 2020 program presented in Belgrade

BELGRADE -- A two-day workshop aimed at familiarizing businesspeople with Horizon 2020 opened at the Serbian Chamber of Commerce (PKS) on Thursday.

Horizon 2020 is EU's new EUR 80 billion program for funding research and innovations from 2014 to 2020.

Assistant Minister of Education, Science and Technological Development Viktor Nedović said that, under an agreement signed in July - retroactively in force from January 1 - Serbia has joined the programme as an associate member.

The ministry has initiated the conference in cooperation with the European Commission to enable EU experts to help our researchers in specific segments of this programme, such as writing project proposals, he said.

Science received a positive assessment in the EU's progress report on Serbia, Nedović said, adding that negotiation chapter 25 was opened on October 6 in Brussels.

A new meeting will be held in December and the Serbian side will have to provide answers to predefined topics, so our scientists should prepare as well as they can, Nedović said.

He announced that the promotion of the Horizon program will continue elsewhere in Serbia.

Dušanka Samardžić adviser to the PKS president, said that the goal of the workshop is to familiarize Serbian businesspeople with the basic components of the new program and that it is a follow-up to the previous FP7 program, which, too, was intended for innovations in technology.

The preparations with EU experts will make the process much easier for Serbian businesspeople this time.

Small and medium-sized enterprises, major companies, university research groups, institutes, individual...