Western Balkan Countries’ ICT Idea Competition

Since 2008, Western Balkan countries (WBC) have been full members to the EU’s Framework Programmes, but their actual involvement still leaves a lot to be desired. There is a widespread perception that substantial Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) research potential exists in the WBC, which is not well represented in the FP7 ICT Programme. Projects such as ICT-WEB-PROMS (www.ict-web-proms.eu) and WINS-ICT (www.wins-ict.eu) financed by the European Commission, are investing in a campaign to overcome inherent barriers and shortcomings that inhibit more active participation of WBC researchers in EU-funded programmes. Therefore, we invite you to participate in our “WBC ICT Research Competition”, providing an opportunity for WBC researchers in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to present their expertise and their ideas to the EU’s research community. The competition is open to anybody from Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, F.Y.R. of Macedonia, Kosovo/UNMIK 1244/99, Montenegro and Serbia, carrying out research or development in the ICT area who has forward looking research ideas. These could be researchers or developers from research institutions, NGOs, administrations or companies based in the WBC; research ideas could eventually be turned into project proposals to be financed by FP7-ICT. The deadline for submission of ideas is 15 May 2010. Interested parties are invited to visit the ICT-WEB-PROMS website (http://www.ict-web-proms.eu/competition) for detailed information regarding the application and evaluation criteria and for further contact details.