As written in the  Science Business article and according to Montenegro’s science minister Sanja Damjanović "... this €200 million investment in an international research facility in the Balkans could help to stop the brain drain and lead to the region regaining its former scientific glory."

For the past three years, the MInister has promoted the vision of a world-leading research institute, built to the same collaborative model as CERN. Now the project has entered its design phase and is edging towards reality.  The 1991 - 2001 wars in former Yugoslavia diminished the economies and science capacity of all countries in the area. Damjanović is now looking to the political will of neighbouring countries and of the EU, “To bring back the tradition in technology that we had in the past.” Seven countries in the Balkans and Kosovo* have teamed up to establish the South East European International Institute for Sustainable Technologies (SEEIIST), which will apply advances in particle physics to medical technologies, in particular to develop hadron therapy, a novel radiotherapy technique using proton or ion beams to deliver precision treatment of tumours, sparing healthy tissue.

The countries involved in SEEIIST hope it will help the region overcome economic difficulties and bring them closer to EU membership.

Establishing a large-scale competitive research infrastructure is “the only way” to revive the scientific and technological potential of the region, Damjanović said. “Due to this recent historical situation in our region, all the scientific economic activities very much slowed down,” she told Science|Business. She is pushing for SEEIIST to be on the EU’s next roadmap for research infrastructures, to be drawn up by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) in 2021. If that goes well, the construction of the facility could start in 2023 and finish in 2028. But she said, “Time is not so much in favour of us because the [ESFRI] deadline is May 2020.”
 

Read the full article at the original source: https://sciencebusiness.net/news/montenegros-research-minister-wants-heal-war-wounds-science