Equally known for its hospitality and intolerance, deliciuous and heart breaking (literally) food, beautiful nature and careless urbanism, Serbia is and always was a land of fascinating constrasts. It seems that it is these contrasts that make the Serbs alive and kicking, always ready for argument, eager to bounce the energy of the oponent to its face or the whole world, whatsoever. Surprisingly, such unprecedented passion for conflict, tendency to question anything and everything, combined with numerous economic and social challenges and their personal, very individual reflections, actually build up a real “hero” potential. Today, this potential steadily and silently develops in the small community of people who have chosen to challenge the ideas, rather than personal economic and social issues.

1. Dr Milan Zdravkovic, from EURAXESS Serbia, takes Portal behind the scenes of
Serbia’s R&D landscape and sets out how the Balkan state could unearth success
Behind Serbia’s dawn
in Horizon 2020
The government budget appropriations for
research and development as a share of GDP
were 0.34% in 2013. This percentage increases
to 0.5% through additional investment of credit
funds in infrastructure and scientific and
research equipment, donations and Instrument
for Pre-Accession Assistance funds. However,
these funds are considered insufficient to light
a spark and contribute to sustainable growth of
the scientific sector and transformation of this
growth to innovation and technological
development. In addition, devastated industry,
with the exception of small, high-tech, mostly
software development enterprises, did not show
a significant interest to pursue the potential to
co-operate with academia.
While the lack of investments and a trend of
further decrease, due to economic crisis,
threaten to undermine a present excellent
journal publishing record, Serbian researchers
are starting to look for incentives and funds in
international co-operation. Serbia has had the
status of an associated country to the EU’s
Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) since
2007. Researchers from Serbia have achieved
significant results in FP7 calls for proposals.
According to the latest statistics, Serbia has
participated in 317 projects, of which 49 were
SME grants, with a success rate of 15.2%.
Serbia also conducts international co-operation
through bilateral and multilateral programmes,
including COST, EUREKA and NATO. At present,
more than 400 experienced and young Serbian
researchers participate in over 170 COST
actions in ten domains. There are 16 active
EUREKA projects, and so far Serbian
researchers have participated in 84 EUREKA
projects overall, involving 172 organisations.
Supporting scientists
There are only a few establishments that
continuously provide different kinds of
assistance or funding to individual researchers
in Serbia. Each year, MESTD allocates a small
Equally known for its hospitality and intolerance, delicious and
heartbreaking (literally) food, beautiful Nature and careless
urbanism, Serbia is and always was a land of fascinating
contrasts. It seems that it is these contrasts that make the Serbs feel
alive and always ready for debate.
Surprisingly, such unprecedented passion for conflict and a tendency to
question anything and everything, combined with numerous economic
and social challenges and their personal, very individual reflections,
actually help create a real ‘hero’ potential. Today, this potential steadily
and silently develops in the small community of people who have chosen
to challenge ideas, rather than personal economic and social issues.
According to some estimations, the scientific community of Serbia
comprises approximately 15,000 people, mostly working in state and
public research institutions, including seven universities. In addition,
scientists are hosted by 30 independent public research institutes and
ten scientific institutes affiliated to the Serbian Academy of Science and
Arts, as well as others. In 2012, the ISEEMob project also discovered
130 private organisations with research activities, 65 innovative
enterprises, five business associations for support of innovation, and 107
registered innovators. In 2014, the number of researchers (FTE) in
relation to the total number of employees was 5.4 per 1,000, while the
number of new doctoral graduates was 0.19 per 1,000 inhabitants.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development
(MESTD), which has overall responsibility for the research and education
system in Serbia, mainly governs the research system; MESTD is also a
funding body. The allocation of public research funding is competitive and
implemented through open calls for proposals (project-based funding).
Dr Milan Zdravkovic
1 ★ I S S U E F O U R ★ H O R I Z O N 2 0 2 0 P R O J E C T S : P O R TA L www.horizon2020projects.com

2. © Aktron
researchers’ careers development. It also establishes correspondent
European standards in these areas.
Since 2009, the network has responded to more than 800 registered
queries from mobile researchers, mostly related to diploma recognition,
employment and funding opportunities, and entry and working conditions.
The network’s activities also resulted in significantly increased awareness
about, and interest in, European standards for the development of human
resources in research. A total of five Serbian research and higher
education institutions have signed the Declaration of Commitment to the
Principles of the Researchers Charter and Code, of which one (the
University of Niš) was granted the European Commission logo for ‘HR
Excellence in Research’.
Horizon 2020 in Serbia
Since 2010, the FP7 priority areas of research potential, especially in
western Balkan countries, have created an atmosphere of a gold rush
among Serbian R&D institutions. Calls for unlocking and developing
research potential opened up an opportunity for addressing probably the
most critical issue of the Serbian research landscape – a lack of modern
R&D infrastructure. These calls contributed tremendously to overall FP7
participation in terms of funding. Unfortunately, this wide open door to
EU funds is now closed in Horizon 2020, and western Balkan countries
are now considered equal competitors. For this reason, MESTD
continuously calls for full mobilisation of the R&D institutions in Serbia in
terms of preparation for the competition with, or joining to, the best EU
research initiatives. The target is set very high – pulling at least €20m of
EU funding for research projects until 2020.
In order to make the best educated guess as to where this money would
come from, one should look first at the policy documents, identifying the
strategic research directions of the Serbian R&D landscape. The Strategy
of Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia
2010-2015 identified seven national priorities in the field of science and
technology, with associated lists of the specific priority topics. The
identified priorities were biomedicine and human health, new materials
and nanosciences, environment protection and climate change,
portion of its budget (in 2012, only 5% of the
science budget) to activities related to the
development of human resources. Some of
these activities are secondments for the
purpose of scientific research or collaboration
development, participation in scientific events
and meetings abroad, study visits of foreign
researchers to Serbia and postdoctoral
research activities. The funding is competitive
and call-based, but unfortunately it is also very
low financially. In most the cases, the money
provided helps researchers to cover only a
small portion of costs incurred by the activity.
With the above programme, MESTD clearly
expressed the importance of mobility for the
career development of researchers in Serbia.
Unfortunately, due to budget restrictions, it also
failed to provide a stronger instrument that
would achieve more impact and contribute to
an increased number of bilateral and
multilateral projects and better transversal skills
(leading, for example, to more and better FP7
project proposals). Again, in seeking
alternatives, Serbian researchers did not have
to go too far. Marie Curie Actions grants (MCA)
under FP7, and the support of the EURAXESS
network, provided significant funding
opportunities, as well as a wide range of
services to mobile researchers. Actually, MCAs
were the most successful applications to FP7
in Serbia across priority areas. A total of 66
applicants from Serbia were shortlisted out of
229 proposals, resulting in a very high success
rate of 29%. These funds are complemented
with a committed and passionate network of
professionals who provide a wide range of
information and services to mobile researchers
– Serbian EURAXESS network.
The Serbian EURAXESS network was
established in 2008 as a new member (a
privilege that was brought by gaining the status
of an associated country to FP7 in 2007) of a
pan-European EURAXESS network. With more
than 260 organisations from 40 European
countries, it is co-ordinated by the European
Commission. Nationally, it is managed by the
Bridgehead office, located at the Faculty of
Mechanical Engineering at the University of Niš.
The network comprises 33 R&D organisations,
and the key objectives of the Serbian
EURAXESS network are to assist with mobility
of researchers and to promote European
principles and best practices related to
Home to EURAXESS
Serbia, the University
of Niš is also a top
ranking higher
education institution
www.horizon2020projects.com H O R I Z O N 2 0 2 0 P R O J E C T S : P O R TA L ★ I S S U E F O U R ★ 2

3. increase competition for open R&D positions,
thus contributing to better transparency of
employment.
Behind the horizon
When taking into account the scientific
excellence illustrated above and the capacity to
collaborate in international projects already
gained through participation in FP7, it is clear
that Serbian R&D organisations are today
trustful and confident partners for participation
in Horizon 2020’s ‘Industrial Leadership’ and
related ‘Societal Challenges’ pillars, especially
in the highlighted areas of computer science,
agriculture and biological sciences.
On-going work on the new strategy for scientific
and technological development for the period
2016-2020 titled ‘Research for Innovation 2020’
is expected to further emphasise the necessity to
valorise a strong human capital in R&D in
international co-operation. However, this
valorisation is not a goal by itself. The main
objective of policy makers is to further progress in
the R&D value creation cycle by overcoming the
so-called ‘valley of death’ between early innovation
and mass production. This will contribute to the
country’s overall technological development and,
consequently, its industrialisation.
agriculture and food, energy and energy efficiency, ICT, and improving
decision making processes and affirmation of national identity.
Even at first glance, it is clear that the chosen priorities do not directly
reflect the distribution of the research potential among fields in Serbia.
However, they fully correspond to European R&D priorities, even in
Horizon 2020. Such a selection highlights the desire and commitment
of the policy makers to stimulate R&D organisations in Serbia to put more
effort into international co-operation and to engage in pan-European
initiatives. This commitment is also a pragmatic reflection of the
increasing difficulties in securing a budget for national funding. Simply
put, MESTD wants to make the system more sustainable by increasing
the share of EU funding and industry co-operation.
Yet, can Serbia really be competitive in the abovementioned priorities?
According to journal publication statistics in the period of 1996-2013,
the best performers among Serbian researchers are the ones who deal
with the challenges of medicine (8,685 journal papers in the period),
engineering (7,534) and physics (5,652). The areas that follow are
computer science, biochemistry, agriculture and biology, chemistry,
materials and mathematics (3,500-4,500). The lower performance is
notable in the priority fields of energy and environment.
When compared to other countries, Serbia ranks well in most fields
alongside eastern Europe, better than so-called western Balkan countries
(with the exception of Croatia) and also better than former USSR countries
that are now EU member states, namely Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.
In southeast Europe, two of the areas in which Serbian researchers are
the most competitive are computer science (the number of journal papers
is similar to Slovakia, Bulgaria and Croatia) and agriculture and biological
sciences (similar to Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia). The strong
international co-operation culture that already exists in Serbia (in
approximately 35% of publications, the authors come from more than
one country) is also a convincing factor of trust and confidence for a
project partner selection.
Given the importance of enabling access to large EU research
infrastructures and networking, with an ultimate goal to achieving
sustainable capability to perform at the level of excellence, the Marie
Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) of Horizon 2020 should remain one of
the top priorities of the Serbian R&D organisations. Besides the benefits
above, the MSCAs would also further develop incoming mobility and
H O R I Z O N 2 0 2 0
Dr Milan Zdravkovic
EURAXESS Serbia
B ROW S E www.euraxess.rs
★ I S S U E F O U R ★ H O R I Z O N 2 0 2 0 P R O J E C T S : P O R TA L www.horizon2020projects.com
3
As the Sun rises on a
new RDI environment
in the Balkans,
will Serbia be
able to exceed its
previous successes?