Young people are one of the most important resources of every country and it is our aspiration, especially if we educated them, at least in part of their higher education, to keep them working and contributing in our environment, said the Minister of Science and Technological Development Biljana Scepanovic.
"In order to want to live in an environment, you should like the living conditions, and they will certainly be more attractive if you have better working conditions and your work is properly valued. These are the items that keep people in one place or drag them to another place. Let's create the conditions so that someone who wants to do so can do quality science in Montenegro and to adequately valorize that work. With this, we will create conditions for their better life and keep them or attract them back to us", she said in an interview with "Vijesta".
In addition to the topic of brain drain, the minister referred to the work of the previous government, the scientific diaspora, and the race to obtain a location for the International Institute for Sustainable Technologies of Southeast Europe (SEEIIST), where the most modern cancer therapy would be developed.
What can we expect from the Ministry of Science and Technological Development (MNTR) during your mandate, especially considering the Government's deadlines?
We are not tied to time, but to what we realistically have at our disposal - to the means at our disposal and to the strong will to do as much as possible with them, as well as to make an effort to increase them. Whether it will be in less than a year, a year or two - we don't know. We plan to do our best, regardless of time constraints, to continue everything that was done properly in the previous period, not only in the previous Government, but also before, when there was an independent Ministry of Science. We will try to revive certain programs that may have been a little lost lately or were on the back burner, as well as to launch some new initiatives that we hope will be well received and that the next government will continue them.
What are the new initiatives?
These are, above all, initiatives at the national level. When it comes to EU and other international funds, in principle we respect the rules prescribed by those funding sources and we are already involved in a large number of these projects. It is up to us to cherish what we have achieved so far, to continue to participate in the same way as before, and to gradually intensify these activities. However, at the national level we can do much more than we did in the previous period and perhaps in a somewhat different way.
How would you evaluate the state of science in society, especially in the last little more than a year? I ask you this because it seems that after the mandate of Minister Sanja Damjanović and the praise of the European Commissioner for Science, not enough attention was paid to this area during the time of her successor Vesna Bratić. Was science neglected? Education was mainly the focus of the Ministry's work.
It is a relatively short period of time, during which the implementation of projects started while the Ministry of Science was independent, in the penultimate government. Indeed, in that period, some activities that were carried out earlier were not fully realized, but it was not only the change of government, i.e. the work system of the previous Government, but also the conditions at the global level, primarily the coronavirus pandemic, that contributed to this.
Some things were not possible to follow up and organize in the way that it would have been done if we lived in more normal conditions. I definitely think it is extremely significant that science is a separate department again. As you yourself said, in one ministry, which is a conglomerate of four demanding departments, where education is naturally dominant, it is logical that perhaps science has not been able to come to the fore in the way that we can give it full attention now that we are a separate ministry .
After canceling a 1,5 million euro competition for scientific research projects at the beginning of last year and promising to announce a new one, the Ministry of Vesna Bratić has not done so in the meantime. In your opinion, how harmful was such a decision for scientists, especially considering that a year and a half was lost in that way?
National scientific research projects are of great importance both for our young researchers and for more experienced ones. The amount of 1,5 million euros was actually intended for two tenders and it would really be extremely significant for the scientific research community if both were realized in full, but they were partially.
Namely, at the beginning of 2020, a tender of 1,3 million was announced for national scientific research projects, and the results were published at the end of the same year. When the pandemic flared up in the spring of 2020, an additional competition was announced, which provided 200.000 euros for the financing of national scientific research projects, primarily in the fields of medicine and economics, whose results were intended to contribute to solving the crisis. That segment was implemented, these projects received funding and were fully implemented.
Can you give us an example?
For example, the first-ranked project from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering is a 3D printed reusable mask, which shows whether a person has a high temperature, intended for professional use by hospital staff working in resuscitation, as well as for people in quarantine.
When is the new competition expected to be announced?
The announcement of the new competition is conditioned by the budget, which was planned for 2022 and adopted at the end of 2021, and it did not foresee national scientific research projects. The technical rebalancing of the budget has been done, now it's time to rebalance the budget. We will be especially committed to providing funds for financing national projects. If not this year, we will try to make it happen at least in the next year.
At the Ministry, we consider national projects to be extremely important. Financing projects from the EU or other international funds implies a significant contribution from Montenegro. In order to receive funds from these funds, we have to invest something in them. Projects of larger dimensions, worth several hundred thousand, even over a million euros, are financed from such funds. In national projects, even just a few thousand or several tens of thousands of euros can mean a lot to a researcher, that is, to a team, to complete an activity that may have already been started, to develop or implement a research idea and the like.
How do you intend to improve cooperation with the scientific diaspora? In which areas do you see particular room for improvement?
We already have cooperation. As you yourself say, we need to improve it. This is exactly what is defined as one of the objectives of the Strategy of Scientific Research Activities, that is, it is represented in all our strategic documents. Our scientists who live and work abroad are already involved in our project teams, which follows a certain natural course, given that we know each other, so we directly arrange cooperation or by exchanging personal contacts we reach suitable collaborators from the diaspora. In addition, we include scientists from the diaspora in the teaching process at our universities, thus making new contacts, which often result in joint activities.
Through the Scientific Network portal, in which we have nearly 300 scientists from the diaspora, cooperation is also established between them and scientists working in Montenegro. This portal also helps our doctoral students to find mentors among scientists from the diaspora, for areas for which it is more difficult to find a mentor at local institutions, because we are not such a comprehensive scientific community that we cover absolutely every field of science with our own capacities, especially considering that when appointing mentors for doctoral dissertations, he also takes into account that one teacher cannot mentor a large number of doctoral students, because that would significantly reduce the quality of his work, that is, their work.
The Ministry will continue to work on their inclusion through some of the new lines of co-financing, where the inclusion of scientists from the diaspora could be especially valued. It is valuable that we have a scientific diaspora and foster cooperation with it, because that, along with a number of benefits, also helps us establish contacts with the wider scientific community.
Montenegro is the first non-EU member to adopt the Smart Specialization Strategy (S3). How is its implementation progressing? What are the concrete results of its application?
In the previous government, the scientific research sector belonged to the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, and the innovation sector to the Ministry of Economic Development. Now these two sectors are united in our ministry. We are very proud to be the first non-EU country to adopt S3. The adoption of any strategy in itself has no purpose and does not mean enough, if we do not take appropriate steps to implement it.
S3 is a modern concept of strategic planning in the EU and is first of all reflected in the mapping, to begin with, of the scientific research, innovation and economic potential of the state, through consultations of four sectors - state administration, economy, academic community and civil sector. When we carry out the mapping, we can specifically say what our strengths and potentials are. In this way, development priorities are identified and they should become the backbone of the country's economic development. Our S3 defines four priorities - sustainable agriculture and food value chain, energy and sustainable environment, sustainable and health tourism and ICT.
After mapping and defining priorities, it is very important to establish an appropriate ecosystem that will enable continuous consultation of all target groups and communication at all levels. In this sense, the role of the Council for Innovation and Smart Specialization, as well as the Innovation Fund, which were formed in 2021, is crucial.
Montenegro has already implemented two pre-acceleration programs and three such programs that are in the final phase. 11 grants have already been awarded for the early stage of the development of startups, which follows the pre-acceleration. Two cycles of collaborative grants for innovative projects were implemented, which generated about 50 new jobs. We are working hard on smart specialization, we are satisfied with the first results and we will strive to make them even better in the coming period.
In the latest report of the European Commission, Montenegro received praise in relation to the percentage of participation in the "Horizon 2020" program. How do we rank in other programs?
The notable activity of teams and institutions from Montenegro in the Horizon 2020 program, especially in the last years of its duration, resulted in the praise you mention. Now its successor program Horizont Europe is in force and we can already boast of exceptional results. The University of Montenegro received a project related to underwater sensor networks, which will be financed with over 1,1 million euros over a three-year period. This is, at the very start, an amount greater than the contribution of Montenegro in this program, so we are already in a positive status - we are already withdrawing more money than we invest, which will be significantly reflected through the strengthening of research infrastructure, human resources, etc. Furthermore, Podgorica was recently selected, together with 100 cities from EU countries and 12 cities from associated members of the Horizon Europe program, to participate in the EU Mission for climate-neutral smart cities until 2030.
After they bought city buses with diesel engines...
I hope that in the coming period we will realize that we do not need diesel public transport vehicles, and that we will really turn to suitable vehicles and everything else that makes cities climate neutral, at least when it comes to the capital. Participation in this mission implies the possibility of applying for funds through which funds are provided for the realization of relevant activities on that front.
I would like to return to your previous question. I would also like to highlight the participation in COST, the program of European cooperation in the field of science and technology. We currently have representatives in about a hundred actions, and several more actions were recently approved, so we can be very satisfied. In the previous period, Montenegro also participated in the most comprehensive international research in the field of social sciences in Europe - European Social Research (ESS). ESS was created as a response to numerous social challenges that Europe is facing, such as the migrant crisis, the change of the family as the basic cell of society, climate change, the decline of trust in institutions, populism... We are active in this program and are preparing for participation in its next phase.
Why the late completion of the Science and Technology Park (STP), whose construction began in June 2020 and should have been completed by now?
NTP, as its own, received a building whose construction started and progressed quite a while ago, and it was supposed to have a completely different purpose - the building of the three faculties of UCG. At the moment when it was decided that NTP would get that facility, it had to be adapted to the new purpose, i.e. the needs of NTP. It is not a very simple process, it implies first an intervention in the project documentation, and then changes in the building itself, in the part of the works that have already been carried out. This was exactly one of the problems that slowed down construction. NTP as an institution was founded in 2019, it has already formed part of its team and is carrying out certain activities. Now we still need to give him a roof over his head and place some other institutions under that roof, such as the Innovation Fund. In an optimistic forecast, we expect the completion of construction works by the end of the year. After the construction, there is a very demanding technical equipment of the building. The very term "science and technology park" implies a significant investment in specific and adequate equipment of the space, so that it can serve its purpose.
What can we expect from him?
I would say that it is a meeting place for creative individuals or teams who have the sense, desire and will to engage in science and innovative activities, who have interesting ideas in the field of technology and technological development, some good business ideas, with tools and institutions that can help them help in their realization. So, a place where some future startups, mirkro and mini-companies will find support to start life. Maybe they need not only financial help, but also the advice of some experts, they need a place to settle, a laboratory where they will test some of them, etc. This is exactly what they will be able to find in NTP - a variety of support. We really believe that in a short period of time NTP will justify its role.
Connecting creative individuals and someone who can help them realize their ideas implies another level of connection - with the economy, which will fully bring their ideas to life. That, in fact, is the whole point of smart specialization. On one side there is someone with a great idea, on the other someone who needs it, that is, its implementation. Between those two sides, there is someone who will connect them, who will help a good idea develop properly and find its application. NTP, together with other institutions and their programs, i.e. segments of innovation infrastructure, right in the middle.
The selection of the location for the SEEIIST headquarters for next year has been postponed. Does Montenegro remain in the candidacy of Ćemovsko polje for this location?
Ćemovsko polje is not the only location we are considering. We are also analyzing some other locations. The activities of this project have been somewhat slowed down in the past period due to all events at the global level, primarily the pandemic. These days we are expecting meetings of working groups in which representatives of Montenegro are also present in order to resolve some details of the legal framework of the SEEIIST project and to continue the analysis of the conditions for the location.
What are some other locations?
We would not go public with it until we are sure that it is our consideration that is justified. We are in the initial analysis of some other locations, but until we adequately review it, we believe that incomplete information should not be shared.
She accepted the position because she wanted to help
Why did you decide to accept the ministerial position? You are not known to the public.
Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the general public does not know me. I am a civil engineer, doctor of technical sciences, researcher, associate professor of Civil Engineering, also engaged at the Faculty of Architecture, a long-time member, and in the academic year 2021/22. and president of the Center for Doctoral Studies of UCG. In the community that deals with the mentioned activities, I am not completely unknown.
Why did I decide to accept the ministerial position? It is a complex question, which also implies a complex, layered answer, but perhaps I should reduce it to the shortest possible form like this - I want to try to make a different contribution to everything that I have stated that my activities are, primarily in the field of scientific research. I have been in this business for a long time, on the one hand, and now I have been given the opportunity - which I understood and accepted as a challenge - to try to contribute, not only as a direct participant in the process, but as someone who may be able to directly help the better position of this business and its people. a colleague. That was my main motivation.
In Montenegro, appointments are usually tied to party affiliation. You are presented as a non-partisan person.
Although, as we said, the general public does not know me, I think that, even at the time when the Prime Minister was a mandate holder and proposed the composition of the Government, they were informed that I am a non-partisan person. That is indeed true, so I have no political motives for accepting the ministerial position.
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