Sound moves for Slovenia
After joining the EU in 2004, Slovenia aimed to increasingly participate in EU-funded projects under the EU's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) and tackle issues related to intellectual property rights (IPR). The EU-funded project SI-NCP-EVENT promoted calls for project participation in FP6 through dedicated events and actions. The project strengthened EU national contact points (NCPs) in the country and trained local researchers to manage and implement projects, focusing on IPR and financial issues. The project specifically targeted small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), creating a network of offices that offered legal and financial support to potential project partners, from researchers and business people to government stakeholders. In previous years, the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (MHEST) in Slovenia had coordinated vigorously with the EU to encourage participation in the bloc's framework programmes. With this latest initiative, MHEST upgraded the cooperation even further, attracting over 3,000 participants from research institutions, SMEs and academia to attend the project's events. SI-NCP-EVENT effectively managed to raise the number of researchers participating in FP6 over previous programmes. It helped researchers manage and implement projects much more successfully, achieving positive evaluations on audit reports. Legal issues were addressed more clearly and consortium agreements became more understandable. With this, Slovenia's integration into the EU's Framework Programmes matured, and the country became an important player in the European Research Area (ERA).
