The General Secretariat for Research and Technology – Ministry of Education, Life-Long Training and Religious Affairs/Greece, Coordinator of the I-SEEMob project, invites you to the Conference “Fostering inter-sectoral mobility of researchers in SEE: Challenges and driving forces” on Friday, 16 March 2012, time: 10:00 a.m. at the premises of the Centre for Research and Technology- Hellas (6th km. Charilau-Thermi Road, Thessaloniki – Greece).

The aim of the event is to foster a policy dialogue between policy representatives from eight (8) Southeastern European (SEE) countries (Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Republic of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Romania) so as to provide recommendations and guidelines to the respective governments for enhancing industry-academia collaboration and promoting inter-sectoral mobility of researchers at the respective countries.

The topic industry-academia collaboration comes again and again at several forums and in EU policy documents as an ever-green issue for Member States. Inter-sectoral mobility is not seen as a goal in itself, but as an instrument that can effectively contribute to eradicating the so-called "European Paradox", i.e. that Europe is unable to sufficiently turn research results into globally competitive products. As such, it fits with the Community policy on boosting research and innovation. At the same time, inter-sectoral mobility adds to the employability and diverse career development of researchers. Increasing knowledge transfer between academia and industry is a key goal of the Commission’s innovation plan, and a vital component of the debates for the future of the European Research Area.

I-SEEMob is a FP7-CAPACITIES funded project aiming at developing a set of policy recommendations to the national governments for improving and supporting the inter-sectoral (academia-industry and vice versa) mobility of R&D personnel and, thus, enhancing their career development. The consortium is consisted of 9 organisations from 8 SEE countries. The partners are: the General Technology-Hellas (GR), the Centre for Research and Technology- Hellas (GR), the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TR), Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (BG), University of Nis/Mechanical Engineering Faculty (RS), Agency for Mobility and EU Programmes (HR), Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MK), Ministry of Civil Affairs (BA), Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research Development & Innovation Funding (RO).