After a short introduction from Nikos Zaharis, the Director of the SEERC in Greece, we were delighted to hear the talk on the EU perspective to RTDI in the region delivered by Ms Tania Friederichs from the DG Research and Innovation and Project Officer of the WBC-INCO.NET Project. She provided an overview of the EUROPE 2020 goals that are relevant for the RTDI policies in general and WBC in particular and outlined the relevant links to the HORIZON 2020 which indeed introduces a systemic approach to the RTDI funding. However, the new programme makes the competition even fiercer which results into strong encouragement towards the WBC to implement the defined RTDI goals in practice.

Gabriela Thomasova from the Centre for Social Innovation, Austria has briefly presented the mapping of the innovation infrastructures in the WBC, a report that covers all 7 countries and presents around 400 innovation relevant organisations that were mapped within the process that included both national organisations and national experts. The intention is to have these reports as a directory of the organisations that will be used for the networking purposes by the widest audience possible.

Dr. Jadranka Svarc from Ivo Pilar Institute, Croatia has summarised in her talk the innovation capacities in the WBC from a comparative point of view and addressed also a survey that outlined the cooperation needs both from the organisational and researchers´ point of view. Mr Rene Wintjes, UNU-MERIT, the Netherlands has concluded with the good practice examples of innovation policy approaches that address the needs identified in the work presented by Ms Svarc and explained the next steps with regards to these activities. Based on the conclusions of the wbc-inco.net innovation fora, the selected best practices will be implemented in close cooperation with the WB regional partners.

WBC-INCO.NET has also supported networking within the region by financing travel costs for a group of 15 grantees which could have been present at the ICEIRD 2012 as well.

The conference has taken place in the historical premises of the Sofia University and local organisers have well taken care of the cultural programme as well. As part of the evening programme on Friday, conference participants were taken on one of the surrounding hills, where they dined in company of the traditional folk music, dancers as well as firewalking that has been accompanied with general astonishment.

Thank you all for the wonderful experience!