The European Commission and scientists and policy makers from the 14 Danube Region countries have launched six scientific clusters to support economic development in the region.
The six clusters will focus on: water; land and soil; bio-energy; air; data exchange and harmonization; and smart specialization.
Presented at a high-level meeting in Bratislava on Thursday, the clusters will provide scientific evidence to support the Danube Strategy, and will also serve to foster scientific cooperation across the region. The launch event was attended, among others, by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefcovic.
Speaking at the launch, Sefcovic said: "The EU Strategy for the Danube Region aims to boost growth and jobs in the area through better policy making and funding. Science can really help by providing evidence-based data to policy makers, helping them to make informed decisions for a region that boasts enormous geopolitical and economic diversity."
The water, land & soil, bio-energy and air clusters will look at these key resources in relation to identified needs: environmental protection, irrigation & agricultural development and energy. The data cluster is meant to facilitate the exchange and harmonization of clear and comparable data in areas such as biodiversity, river morphology, flood and drought risks, soils, crops or energy resources and potential.
It will also set up a common data access point for the whole region - the first operational version should be available by December this year. The smart specialization cluster will study how to concentrate resources on key scientific priorities based on the economic potential of the Danube region rather than spreading efforts and investment too thinly.
The clusters will bring together the scientific community from the 14 Danube countries, involving most of the academies of science in the region, the Danube Rectors Conference (which involves 54 universities) and many other research organizations. The partners will take part in the cluster(s) of their choice, according to their priorities and expertise.
The clusters will foster cooperation not only among scientists, but also between scientists and policy makers, and will encourage a better uptake of scientific results in policy-making. While the scientific community will meet regularly, policy makers will be updated once a year, the European Commission said in a press release.
The Danube region is home to over 100 million people spread over 14 countries: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Ukraine and Moldova.
For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com