One of the first national EURAXESS portals embracing the new branding and visual identity and provisioning the integrated services to mobile researchers is Serbian EURAXESS portal. Since launch in January 2009, portal w s visited by 8000 unique visitors from 97 countries (great most from Serbia, then USA, UK, Germany, Italy, Croatia, Hungary, etc.), with overal of 35000 page views. The most visited pages were database of serbian research landscape, services centers page and incoming researchers section entry page. Recently, in the frame of national portal, extranet application is launched, providing support to a network members in submission and administration of researchers’ inquiries, job vacancies, relevant news and announcements. Since the beginning of November, 2009, 90 extranet users are registered, with 800 logins recorded.

Personalized assistance to mobile researchers is enabled through a network, consisting of 5 Service Centers and 33 Local Contact Points, and coordinated jointly by the Bridgehead organization – Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Niš, and Ministry of science and technological development of a Serbian government. Network structure, organization and operations are described by two charters, describing separately organization of Bridgehead and the network. Service Centers coordinators are appointed by the universities’ rectors and trained for a provision of quality service by the Bridgehead organization, as well as European Commission, at trainings organized in Bulgaria, Greece and Estonia. Network became fully operational after series of workshops for local contact points, organized in 6 locations in December, 2009, by Service Centers coordinators, with support of the Bridgehead staff. Workshops were attended by 57 collegues from 47 organizations from Serbian research landscape. Network worked hard on collection of information on foreign researchers in Serbia, job vacancies and responding to researchers’ inquiries. Until now, 32 foreign researchers are registered, as well as 20 inquiries. 5 testimonials of foreign researchers are collected and published. Moreover, 253 job vacancies are published on Serbian version of the portal. The Survival Guide for short visits of research staff to Serbia has been published and widely disseminated by network members, Basileus central in Gent University, Belgium and their partners in Serbian universities, and two student associations – for support in student exchange programs.
 

EURAXESS Serbia put a lot of efforts in promoting the values and pillars of researchers mobility in national research sector. We published 4 newsletters, received by more than a thousand employees of research&development organizations in Serbia, as well as diaspora. In collaboration with Ministry for science and technological development, EURAXESS Serbia organized 6 Info days, in Belgrade, Niš, Novi Sad and Kragujevac, attended by more than 250 participants. Moreover, activities of the network are presented by relevant speakers in multiple ocassions: at two national conferences, workshops in Romania and Bosnia & Herzegovina, EURAXESS conference in Germany, and number of other meetings and events, attended by Service Centers coordinators. With aim to establish even stronger relation with mobile researchers, a Facebook page is created in June, 2009, and continuously updated, gaining support of more than 170 friends, so far.
 

Finally, its worth mentioning that EURAXESS Serbia has become an active participant in development of European and national strategy for facilitating and strengthening the EURAXESS network and researchers mobility in general, through its contribution at the meetings of the Steering group for mobility and human resources and Working groups for quality and portal administrators. Active involvement in development of national policy is demonstrated in the public discussion on the "Science and technological development strategy of the Republic of Serbia 2009-2014". Through the national steering group, EURAXESS developed guidelines for amendments to the documents, promoting the main principles of the European Partnership for Researchers.

Links:

Serbian EURAXESS portal
http://www.euraxess.rs

SER-MORE project
http://www.euraxess.rs/sitegenius/topic.php?cmd=switchLang&newLang=EN&id=340

Database of Serbian research landscape
http://www.euraxess.rs/sitegenius/topic.php?cmd=switchLang&newLang=EN&id=303

EURAXESS Services in Serbia
http://www.euraxess.rs/sitegenius/topic.php?cmd=switchLang&newLang=EN&id=276

Source: This article was kindly provided by Milan Zdravkovic, Research and teaching assistant, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nis.