Participants
The proposal should include at least 3 participants: one from a convergence or outermost region in a Member State, one from another Member State and one from a Western Balkan Country.

The participants should be public or private existing research centres in the EU's convergence and outermost regions as well as all other regions and the WBC. They should be defined as a working unit, either independent or functioning within a locally established research organisation in the concerned countries, having preferably distinct organisational and administrative boundaries. The participants should not be a subsidiary or branch of an organisation established in another country.

Type of activities
This activity will support an Action Plan defined by the concerned research centres, which will be based on a coherent set of twinning measures for:

• Exchange of know-how and experience between the research centres in Member States and those of the Western Balkan Countries through trans-national two-way secondments of research staff between the selected centres, with in-built obligatory return mechanisms. Training in Member States for Ph.D. students and/or post-doctoral researchers: sending scientists from the Western Balkan centres for short stays, to laboratories abroad, either for specialised training or to carry out a specific research experiment or to prepare cooperative activities and/or joint RTD proposals;
• Recruitment by the WBC selected centres of incoming experienced researchers, including as a mean to particularly encourage the return of nationals having left the country, for teaching, training and/or joint research activities; and hiring of new young researchers to reinforce the human potential of the Western Balkan centres.
• Acquisition, development, maintenance, upgrading and/or renewal of S&T research equipment for the selected WBC research centres;
• Organisation of workshops and conferences to facilitate knowledge transfer at national and international level involving both the selected centres’ own research staff and invited researchers, from other countries in the frame of the development of the selected centres’ international training capacity and reputation; participation of the research staff of the centres selected under the scheme at international conferences or short term training events, for knowledge sharing, network building and to expose them to a more international environment;
• Dissemination and promotional activities to ensure increased visibility of the selected centres and their activities.

Expected impact

• Accelerate the setting up of sustainable partnerships between the most competitive RTD centres of EU’s convergence and outermost regions, Member States and Western Balkan Countries whilst boosting regional cooperation contributing to socio-economic needs;
• Improving and/or enlarging the RTD capacity of Western Balkan centres of competence in terms of S&T policy and research programmes, scientific and technical human resources and S&T infrastructures;
• Better and more integrate Western Balkan countries in the FP7 networks and RTD projects as well as in the Member State’s national cooperation programmes as a prerequisite of these countries successful integration into the European Research Area.

More details are available from the Workprogramme 2007 of the Capacities Programme Theme 4 Research Potential.