IPA - the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance is to a large extend used by the countries of the Western Balkans to cover part of the costs to participate in FP7. But there are many more aspects between IPA and research - compliance with the acquis in respect to research and capacity building to name just two.

Croatia for example presented a project on technology transfer and start-up support services, a Science and Innovation Investment Fund and a BioCenter. FYR of Macedonia has a supporting IPA unit within the Ministry for Education and Science and shall improve development of human resources. In Montenegro science is not among the priorities yet but rather Vocational Education. Serbia has good experiences already with CARDS programming and proposed several projects involving also clusters, incubators, business and technology parks, furthermore supporting European standards e.g. with nuclear safety research and as mentioned FP7 participation. Also in cross border cooperation, education, research and employment generation are involved.

Source: notes taken at the Steering Platform Meeting, update will be provided after the full "Minutes of the Meeting" are available.