Contributions focused on the most appropriate use of funds of the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) for research. It transpired that the countries have had different experiences in this regard. The major focus for all of them was participating as associated countries in FP7 and the governments in most countries decided to use funds from IPA (or its predecessor, the CARDS programme) to pay for the “entrance fee”. Whereas Montenegro or Albania reported that it was not possible to prioritise research on the planning documents, Serbia has had good experiences with the CARDS programme and has again managed to prioritise ICT infrastructure as well as the development of local-regional business and innovation support structures, such as clusters, incubators, and business/technology parks. Croatia also shared its experiences from an initiative on technology transfer and support services for knowledge-based business start-ups. Further analysis how IPA could be used to strenghten research capacity will take place.
The Slovenian Ministry for Higher Education, Science and Technology announced that it will host the next meeting in June 2008, co-chaired by the Montenegrin Ministry for Education and Science and with support of WBC-INCO.NETs Workpackage 1.
(Information provided by Greek General Secretariat for Research and Technology, /org/82.html)

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