The Norwegian Cooperation Programme with the Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, FYR of Macedonia and Serbia-Montenegro) in Research and Higher Education.
Norway and the Western Balkan countries have been cooperating in the fields of research and higher education since the year 2000. The programmes are managed by the Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Higher Education (SIU), which has signed an agreement with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for this activity.
The cooperation has been organised in two programmes:
Phase 1: 2000-2004: 80 million NOK (1€=prox 8 NOK) were allocated to projects focusing on social science, language, solutions for environmental problems and higher education.
Phase 2: 2006-2009 has a total budget of 75 million NOK. The objective of the cooperation is to initiate, develop and fund collaboration between universities, university colleges and research institutions in the Western Balkans and corresponding Norwegian institutions. Projects funded by this programme will contribute to improving competence and building capacity at research institutions and institutions of higher education in the Western Balkans.
Two thematic areas were prioritised:

• Governance and democracy building
• Environmental protection, management of natural resources and marine issues

During spring 2006, 16 new projects were initiated. These projects focused on topics within social science, language, marine issues and environment will run for 4 years. Altogether 51,800,000 NOK (approx. 6,500,000 EUR) are allocated to these projects for this period. At least 50% of these funds shall be allocated to the partners in the Western Balkan countries.

Further information /link/261.html.

Article published in eJournal summer 06.