The Legal framework

The Law on Ministries defines the specific roles, competencies and responsibilities of the Ministry of Science.
According to this law, the Ministry plays a decisive role in all main strategic decisions, such as creation of an S&T strategy and policy as well as R&D programmes, setting up of rules and procedures for all R&D activities financed and promoted by the Ministry, certification of R&D organisations and researchers, negotiation, building-up and financing of international bilateral and multilateral S&T cooperation, co-financing of technological development projects and programmes for and with industrial and other public companies, research in the field of nuclear energy and nuclear safety.

1. Law of the Ministries (Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 48/07)
2. Law on the Scientific and Research Activities (Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 110/05)
3. Law on Electronic Signature (Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 135/04)
4. Law on Innovation Activities (Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 110/05)
5. Law on Serbian Encyclopedia (Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 110/05)
6. Law on Vocabulary of Serbian Academic of Scientific and Art (Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 110/05)

R&D programmes and funding

The main responsibilities of the Ministry of Science concern managing, planning and financing of national R&D programmes. The following programmes exist:

1.The Basic Research Programme funds projects in all fields of basic research. The project duration is 5 years with a yearly financing up to 100% of project costs. According to the official data for the project period 2006-2010, the Ministry funds 458 projects involving 5,500 researchers with a total amount of EUR 25 m per year.
2. The Technological Development, Transfer of Technologies and Innovation System funds projects in the fields of ICT, materials and chemical technologies, mechanical engineering and industrial software, traffic engineering and civil construction, energy technologies, and biotechnologies. In the present scheme special national science programmes for the following research domains: Energy Efficiencies; Biotechnology and Agro-Industry; Protection and Use of Waters in Serbia are formulated by the Ministry. The project duration is 1-3 years, with a yearly financing up to 80% of the project costs. According to the official data for 2006, the Ministry provided EUR 21.7 m for these projects. The Transfer of Technologies and Innovation System as a part of the programme aims to support the establishment of a sustainable bridge between research organisations and industry. The project duration is up to 1 year with yearly financing up to 50% of the project costs. The Ministry has provided EUR 7.6 m in 2006. In 2007, 53 projects will be realised by organisations and 16 by registered innovators (physical persons).
3. The Human Resources Development Programme provides scholarships to young scientists, supports domestic researchers participating at international R&D projects, meetings and conferences, organisation of scientific conferences, publishing of scientific results, and many more. For this programme about EUR 1.44 m were provided in 2006.
4. International R&D Co-operations Programme focuses on international, scientific, technological, bilateral and multilateral cooperation, projects and programmes of the EC, cooperation with organisations and agencies from the UN system, with foreign scientific, government and non-government organisations and associations, as well as with scientists and experts in diaspora. Since 2001, Serbia has realised significant progress in the re-establishment and re-integration into European programmes:
4.1. Framework Programmes: As far as FP6 is concerned, Serbian researchers participate in 83 projects with the total budget of EUR 13.1 m (with significant participation under the FP6 INCO programme; 8 out of 10 in 2005 and 8 out of 20 in 2006). On June 13, 2007, Minister Ana Persikan has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the EC enabling Serbia to become associated country and therefore Serbian researchers to participate fully in FP7. One of the main results is the significant participation in the call REGPOT-3: out of total accepted 11 projects, Serbian researchers coordinate 7 and participate in a further 3. The Ministry of Science itself participates in several network projects of FP6 (e.g. ERA-WESTBALKAN+, IDEALIST-EXTEND, SEE-ERA.NET, Food-N-Co, BAFN, FIT, IDEALIST7FP) as well as in forthcoming FP7 projects.
4.2. EUREKA: There are 28 ongoing projects in EUREKA with participating Serbian organisations.
4.3. COST: There are 65 ongoing COST actions in which Serbian researchers participate.
4.4. Bilateral Cooperation: Bilateral cooperation based on bilateral S&t agreements is active with Slovenia, Slovakia, FYR of Macedonia, France, Greece and Switzerland. Negotiations are currently ongoing with Argentina, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Cuba, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Russia and US.

Conclusions

The efforts of the Ministry of Science to realise the strategic aims established at the beginning of 2001 will be further continued in all above mentioned fields to create a knowledge-based society.

Article published in see-science.eu eJournal fall/winter 2007.