Project name: Serbia Innovates – MedTech and Biotech Supercluster “Health Tech Lab”
Project lead institution: ICT Hub
Project partners: Science and Technology Park, Health Tech Lab, FEFA faculty
Financier: USAID
Project goal: The consortium’s vision is a Serbia where healthcare is personalized and digitalized, while industry is active and developed on the basis of strong infrastructure and technology.
The development of an ecosystem in which ethical principles are respected with the existence of agile legislation that enables successful business and the implementation of innovations is one of the primary goals of the consortium. By meeting that goal, the entire society will use products and innovations and develop confidence in a functioning system.
Project activities: Organization of one hackathon, one accelerator, two bootcamps, monthly community meetings, curriculum development of the master’s program at the FEFA faculty, holding competitions with faculties and institutes…
Project results: Collaboration between over 57 organizations, including 13 startups, 15 academic institutions, 27 professional and support organizations and 2 multinational companies. The first accelerator for medical and biotechnology startups was established, a new startup was formed from the hackathon, cooperation between the institute and the business school was established, cooperation between the faculty and private companies was established, on the basis of which some students were employed…
Project implementation period: 12 months (from June 1, 2022 – June 1 2023)
Link to the project website: https://srbijainovira.rs/en/pilot-superklasteri/medicinska-biotehnologija
The project represents a more advanced phase in informing high school students about the possibilities the Science and Technology Park Niš provides to young people when choosing a future profession.
When meeting STP Niš organizers and users, high schoolers who already have an affinity towards technical sciences will get a picture of perspectives opened to them in the context of a knowledge-based society. In that sense, it is important to illuminate the perspective that professionals in the fields of technical sciences can expect in a society based in knowledge for them. To that end, aside from STP Niš, the Association for Industrial Heritage and Promotion of Advanced Technologies is also engaged in the project. With their help, everything that was being produced in this region will be shown, visits to relevant scientific laboratories at the technical faculties will be organized, as well as visits to companies whose production is based on applying results from technical sciences.
The “Future Cities of Southeast Europe” project is financially backed by the “Climate-KIC” organization, a community of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology, and is being implemented in 5 pilot cities which, according to assessments, have the capacities for a systemic transformation of the cities: Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Skopje (North Macedonia), Križevci (Croatia), Maribor (Slovenia), and Niš (Serbia).
The project is supposed to provide qucker and easier systematic changes through innovations, in order to achieve a better quality of life for citizens and the necessary decarbonization in the activities which critically affect the emission of greenhouse gasses. Since technological innovations by themselves will not achieve structural changes necessary for progressive growth over time, the project will combine different innovative methods in the fields of finances, business models, legislative frameworks, behavior perception and social norms, education and skills, new and existing technologies, citizen participation, market structure, etc.
The “Future Cities of Southeast Europe” should help the City of Niš, as well as other partner cities, to deal with these challenges and, as a response to them, conduct the process of transformation. Progress, quality of life, and climate resistances form the vision – which is possible to achieve by using natural and human resources with the right combination of ambitions, innovations, and other resources.
The agreed common mission is that the partner cities of the project become some of the best possible places in Europe for living, working, and staying in by 2025. Within the mission, the following radical goals were set:
- To bring the quality of air in our cities within the levels recommended by the World Health Organization by 2023.
- To achieve circular economy with zero emissions by 2030.
- To ensure that, by 2025, all members of our community have equal access to basic human goods: proper living conditions, healt insurance, education, mobility, food, water, green public spaces, security, and productive work possibilities.
- To be reducing the influence of warming on floods in our communities year by year.
- This wide approach lead by the set mission requires a mass reshaping of thinking and the manner of work, because of which the City of Niš is working on creating a program package of actions and innovations, facing the existing challenges and using its possibilities in the largest possible number of certain key fields where quick and high-quality urban changes are needed.
The EIT Climate-KIC RIS Hub platform in Serbia is coordinated by CirEkon. Our Hub also consists of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia / Privredna komora Srbije, Naučno-tehnološki park Niš / Science and Technology Park Nis, Climate innovation Hub.
EIT Climate-KIC is the EU’s climate innovation initiative, which accelerates the transition to a zero-carbon and resilient world by enabling systems transformation. EIT Climate-KIC was established in 2010 and is predominately funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union.
The Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS) is the EIT Climate-KIC flagship initiative active across Southern and Central Eastern Europe. The EIT RIS is designed as a long-term initiative to strengthen the national and regional innovation ecosystems of moderate and modest countries, based on the EU Innovation Scoreboard.
The overarching mission is to contribute to the advancement of the climate adaptation and mitigation goals enabling the innovation performance of these countries and regions by strengthening the capacity of their innovation enablers and actors and linkages among them (such as business accelerators, incubators, start-ups, scale-ups, businesses including SMEs, agencies, educational and research institutions and their infrastructures, etc.) through facilitated cooperation at local, national and regional level.
The EIT Climate-KIC RIS program offers a concrete way to design, build, and deliver mission-oriented portfolios of related programs on skills development and learning, entrepreneurship, and innovation to catalyze fast decarbonization, provide future-proof jobs, and generate new jobs markets aligned to 1.5º and drive forward adaptation and resilience.
