To address these challenges, the University of Banja Luka (and its Faculty of Agriculture) is coordinating a twinning project "Promoting the application of smart technologies in agricultural water management in Bosnia and Herzegovina - SMARTWATER" funded by the European Commission under the HORIZON 2020 program (Grant Agreement No. 952396).  The aim of SMARTWATER is to promote the application of smart technologies (cloud-based and remote sensing) in the agricultural water management. .

The SMARTWATER project duration is three years, from January 2021- December 2023. The project involves two main BiH higher education and research performing institutions, University of Banja Luka (UNI-BL) and University of Sarajevo (UNSA), and four international partners, Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) from Spain, Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA) from Portugal, Centro Internazionale di Alti Studi Agronomici Mediterranei (CIHEAM-IAMB) and Sysman Progetti & Servizi Srl (SYS) from Italy.

The achievement of the project objectives is planned through a series of twinning activities such as improving the overall scientific and innovation capacity of BiH by collaborating with internationally leading counterparts, as well as strengthening the scientific network and increasing training effectiveness exploiting IT technologies. The activities will be carried out within a period of project lifetime where the monitoring of project achievements will be done through a set of clear and measurable indicators for each specific activity.

The main aim is to reinforce networking, research and science and technology cooperation capacities of UNI-BL, UNSA and other relevant institutions across BiH, in the field of sustainable agricultural water management. Particularly, the project aims to reinforce the networking and science and technology capacity for optimizing the use of water, land, energy and fertilizers; focusing on the development of modern irrigation methods and management practices. This will be done by applying the latest technologies and tools for water management, promoting the climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies/measures and eco-efficiency as the main contemporary indicator of sustainability and balanced and rational use of natural resources. In the sense, the project activities will strength the involvement of early-stage researchers. The project aim is also to increase their competency and fund raising skills of the UNI-BL and UNSA for a successful participation in the European Union funding schemes (particularly Horizon Europe programme).