Keepin touch

Whether you have a question, comment, suggestion or any problem in the purview of the government, send us your message and we will try to respond as soon as possible. If your problem is not in our purview, we will forward your message to the relevant institution.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Serbian projects could be financed through EU funds

Belgrade, 14 March 2007

Representatives of the Serbian Ministry of Science and Environmental Protection, which organised informational conference "COST Day of Serbia" held today, said that this event opens the possibilities for Serbia's projects to be financed from the European Union's (EU) research budget.

Aleksandar Popovic

Author: Fonet

Speaking at a gathering at the Belgrade University Rectorate, Serbian Assistant Minister of Science for International Cooperation Ivan Videnovic said that COST enables exchange of opinion between partners who should later propose a project which would be financed in the next seven years from the EU budget, in the amount of over €50 billion.

Videnovic said that since a very small percentage is set aside from the Serbian budget for science, it is important for Serbian science to get access to EU funds.

Also, it would be very good for Serbian researches to get included in those programmes, so COST is a means for achieving that goal, Videnovic added.

Videnovic explained that COST is an intergovernmental framework for coordination of European cooperation of cognate scientific and technical research activities which are being financed at national level, and whose realisation is carried out by at least five institutions from the member states.

According to Videnovic, any member country may begin this campaign at the initiative of one of its scientific and research institutions.

In that case, it is necessary that the institution provides support of at least four other countries if the proposal for the campaign is even to be considered, added Videnovic.

Conference participants were welcomed by Minister of Science and Environmental Protection Aleksandar Popovic and present at the meeting were also Chairman of the COST "Senior Officials" Committee, as the supreme COST body, Francesco Fedi, Director of COST Brussels office Martin Grabert and vice-president of the domain for biomedical and molecular bioscience Hans Stodkilde-Jorgensen.

COST (European Cooperation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research) was established in 1971 and former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was among its founders. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia became its full member in 2001. Until now, Serbia took part in 67 COST campaigns.