Countries in the region depend on the creation, transfer and use of knowledge to catch-up with technological leaders, such as Norway. Success depends on the development and implementation of new institutions and policy instruments that are complementary to the needs of the local economy.

Identifying good practices, in support of sustainable economic development and catching-up, depends on policymakers having a better understanding of the innovation system, including its economic, political and cultural institutions, and the relevant policy instruments.

In the project, Norway provides the model or a framework within which one can identify ‘good’ policy practices and policy learning. Norway is a resource-based, knowledge-driven economy, which is relatively egalitarian, homogeneous and based on trust. It provides a good example for policy learning through its experience and use of expertise from many different sources, including the economic sciences. The Western Balkan countries can benefit through this rich experience, despite its considerably diversity among the countries in the region.

The project is composed of two work packages: 1) an analysis of the different innovation systems in the Western Balkan region, including formal (legal system) and informal (cultural system) institutional arrangements of the society; and 2) a study of innovation policy development, including the integration of different policy instruments into a coherent policy-mix, and policy learning. A variety of different methods are used to provide a better understanding of how different actors are related to the innovation system as a whole.

Funding for the project was provided by the Research Council Norway. The WBinNO project is a partnership of five institutes located in Norway, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, and Serbia and is led by Mark Knell of the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU), Oslo, Norway.

On Wednesday, 6 June 2010 the project organised a workshop in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Innovation Policy Learning in the Western Balkans. The workshop offered ideas on how policymakers can recognize good and bad practices in their own countries, learn from other countries and then apply these ideas in their own country. For further details please see related items below.