The Government of the Republic of Slovenia has identified a first value project to be presented at the meeting - a collaboration on exchange of educational and other data essential for starting the Openness agenda and build prosperity of citizens of the WB6 (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia).

The project addresses the essential challenge of research and innovation in the knowledge economy that lies in the knowledge/technology transfer from R&D to the commercial world. The operation of this innovation value chain is not well-developed in Europe, and particularly underdeveloped in Western Balkans (and South-East Europe).

The Future Region’s Single Digital Initiative[1] brings countries together to share data and information that can predict future (educational, technological, business, etc.) trends. This, in turn, will enable the regional economy to map its competencies and skills and become more competitive. It will provide a background based on the open information system to encourage a “transnational innovation system” for Western Balkans.

This idea is about integrating existing educational, research and innovation data in the region to provide open and unique science and research analytics services to researchers, businesses, policy makers and general public. The intention is to create the first step to a fully running service based on the existing data from Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia and existing analytics environment built in Slovenia[2]. In the next step, the other five countries from the Region will be involved.

The project is essentially a data driven one, but with its results it will create a baseline for an open education platform in the Western Balkans. It covers an initial gap that can facilitate the creation and exchange of OER content. The project at its start most effectively empowers young people, more precisely PhD, MA, MSc students in research, and professionals.

[1]   As signed by Chambers of economy in presence of relevant Ministries of countries forming the Future Region at occasion of Bled Strategic Forum, 2016

[2] Connected database of all Slovenian research content http://scienceatlas.ijs.si