The agreements on the construction of a unit of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in Nis and a building for the project of the Verrocchio Institute of Physics in Belgrade were signed by Minister of Education, Science and Technological Development Mladen Sarcevic, the minister without portfolio in charge of innovation and technological development, Nenad Popovic, the director of the Public Investment Management Office, Marko Blagojevic, the mayor of Nis, Darko Bulatovic and the director of the Institute of Physics, Aleksandar Bogojevic.

The projects are a part of the support of the Government of Serbia and the Council of Innovative Entrepreneurship and Innovative Technologies to the development of IT and science infrastructure in Serbia.

Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said following the signing of the agreements that the investment would be important for digitization, education, science, construction industry, but also the total gross domestic product.

According to her, the lab unit was included in the original planning design of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in Nis back in 1975, but was never built. The project, she emphasizes, will now be realized. She also reminded that there had been talk of a science-technology park in Nis for more than 10 years.

– For this reason, I impatiently await for the works to begin on all those projects – the prime minister said.

An EIB credit of EUR 5.2 million has been secured for the extension of the building of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in Nis. The construction of the science-technology park in Nis, as well as the procurement of equipment, will be credited by the EIB with EUR 10 million. A business incubator for around 30 startups will also be located there, and there will also be a section for R&D departments of larger companies.

The project of the Verrocchio Institute of Physics in Belgrade, which includes cooperation with the leading global scientific research centers, is co-financed from the EIB funds in the amount of EUR 5 million. The plan is to raise a prototype manufacturing facility of 1,000 square meters, as well as basic infrastructure, and the works are to begin in 2019.

– Through cooperation with CERN and other European partners, Verrocchio will help connect the existing pools of knowledge from various fields, such as development of new generations of accelerators and detectors, modeling complex systems, super-computing, analysis of big data sets, but also solving key challenges in the fields of biomedicine, archaeology and sociology. The new scientific, educational and innovative environment will cooperate closely with the growing IT sector in Serbia – the Belgrade Institute of Physics announced.

The realization of another four projects is planned to the end of enhancing the Serbian IT sector, two of which have already started. Namely, the construction of the science-technology park in Novi Sad has already begun, and the tender for the planning design of the new building of the Scientific Research Institute BioSense in Novi Sad has been placed. The remaining two pertain to the construction of a new building of the Faculty of Organizational Sciences in Belgrade and a building for higher education of IT engineers in Belgrade.

The total value of all seven projects exceeds EUR 50 million.