Two other important events took place in Tirana on June 12–13: the WBC-INCO.NET Innovation Dialogue Forum focusing on the Action Plan to increase innovation capacities in the region, and the Knowledge Transfer Study workshop, which is part of a workshop series covering 39 European countries in 2011 and 2012. This workshop was intended to discuss the status and challenges of knowledge transfer from universities and public research institutes, as well as good practices which are visible. It was organised by empirica GmbH from Germany and it took place in cooperation with the WBC-INCO.NET project and back-to-back with a session of the Steering Platform on Research for the Western Balkan countries.

In this issue of the WBC-INCO.NET Journal, you can also read more about developments towards Regional Strategy for Research and Development for Innovation for Western Balkans, in an article provided by Mladen Dragasevic from the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC). Another highlight of this issue are “Success stories on innovation from the West Balkans”, kindly prepared by René Wintjes and Jean Severijns.
In the second half of 2012, WBC-INCO.NET will emphasise the topic of Smart Specialisation as well, while sharing information on the currently running funding programmes for research and innovation, FP7 and others, as well as the upcoming Horizon 2020 will be continued.


Best regards,
Elke Dall, Ines Marinkovic and the WBC-INCO.NET Team