Last week the Steering Groups of both PA7 – Knowledge Society and PA8 – Competitiveness held their 10th meeting in Budapest, Hungary.

The Priority Area 07 aims “To develop the Knowledge Society (research, education and ICT)” is coordinated by Slovakia and Serbia. The welcome speech was given by Stefan Chudoba and by a representative of Viktor Nedovic who could not attend. The meeting was aimed at providing an overview of the work done by the 5 working groups:

WG 1: Higher education and mobility

WG 2: Information and Communication Technologies

WG 3: DRRIF and Coordination of National Funds within the Danube Region

WG 4: Communication with Joint Research Centre with special emphasize on RIS3

WG 5: Research and Innovation

The event provided the opportunity to also discuss on the proposals of planned activities (and activities were proposed by both Slovakia and Serbia) as well as on the way to foster cooperation with other EU initiatives such as COST and the new targets to be set from now on. Danube-INCO.NET progresses and achievements were also duly reported by the project coordinator, Elke Dall.

As far as the PA8 Steering Group meeting is concerned, it was held on the 10th of December. The PA8 aims “To support the competitiveness of enterprises” and is coordinated by the Land Baden-Württemberg (Germany) and Croatia. The meeting served for discussing on main achievements in 2015 in terms of actions and project implementation. Targets of PA8 were also discussed as well as the enhancement of cooperation within the Danube Region: information on the Interreg VB was given and cooperation approaches with ARGE Danube and Business Professional Women Danube Net were discussed.