Highlights

The main topics of the conference were baby friendly business culture, the position of fathers in the maternity leave, and subsequently in raising a child. Entrepreneurs in Serbia are increasingly recognizing the importance and the benefits of family-friendly policies. Investing in those policies will help improve workforce productivity, and companies will be able to attract, motivate and retain employees more effectively. Well-drafted support policies increase women's participation in the workforce, economically empower families, enhance children's skills, encourage job creation, reduce inequality and poverty in society, as well as gender imbalances and stereotypes about the role of women and men in raising a child.

The participants had a task to define stress metrics and classify corn hybrids for stress tolerance in an effort to ultimately develop more resilient seeds and create localized options for regions of the world that are not considered hospitable for growing corn. The BioSense team, consisting of Gordan Mimić, Sanja Brdar, Milica Brkić, Marko Panić, Oskar Marko and Vladimir Crnojević won the third prize, with the research entitled “Engineering meteorological features to select stress tolerant hybrids in maize” and the solution they offered was very well accepted. Once again, it was proved that the research excellence of BioSense

The first Digital Dialogue brought together representatives from renowned tech companies, policy and decision makers from both Serbia and Russia. The Minister without Portfolio in charge of Innovation and Technological Development, Nenad Popovic, revealed that the Digital Dialogue between Serbia and Russia would be held at least twice a year as it encourages the establishment of new values through innovation and digitization. The Russian President’s Special Adviser, Dmitry Peskov, stated that we were entering a new technological age that should last for a long time and that it would be important for us to create new powerful collaborations that have already been created before. All participants had the opportunity to discuss joint projects and establish new relationships which will certainly contribute to the further development of the ICT sector in both countries.

Education is firmly back at the top of the European Union's political agenda. Taking into account that the education is the key for building a prosperous society in the future, all Ministers of Education in the region were invited to review the state of educational reforms in their countries, learn about the latest strategies in the EU, identify priorities, as well as to cooperate on activities undertaken by the platform. More than 100 participants explored new ways on how to boost research innovation potential in their countries, in order to encourage economic growth.

On 23rd September in the morning, the Regional Cooperation Council organised a meeting to discuss Horizon Europe and the WB related position paper. On September 24th, the Ministers responsible for Science and Innovation have eventually gathered for a joint debate. Our country was represented by ANTARES project partners, the Minister of Education, Science and Technological Development M. Šarčević with the delegation of the State Secretaries: Ph.D. A. Langović Milicević, Ph.D. V. Nedović and Ph.D. V. Popovic. The debate focused on Smart Specialization, Research Infrastructure, Horizon Europe, and the mobility of researchers among other topics. During the meeting, the Initial Statement on the Horizon Europe proposal by the WB6 has been agreed.

The ANTARES project staff had a chance to meet on several occasions with other coordinators of Teaming projects. They discussed progress, achieved results, identified shared challenges they encountered in the and defined common strategies. Every Teaming Club meeting had its own agenda and covered different topics. The focus was on various questions and challenges: autonomy and decision making, complementary funding, long term sustainability of the CoE, overall impact of the CoE on the European research ecosystem, HR Strategy of the CoE, upgrade of research infrastructure, synergies with advanced partners, progress in the science – industry collaboration etc

The aim of the contest was to find ICT solutions which would enhance agriculture in Africa and therefore solve the problem of the lack of food. The answer of researchers from BioSense, Oskar Marko, Sanja Brdar and Gordan Mimic, aroused a lot of interest: an increase in yields through a smart choice of seeds, without any additional investments in fertilizers, pesticides, or mechanization. This was also opportunity to promote achievements of the Centre of excellence and spread the word about the ANTARES project. The event and the achievements of BioSense team got a lot of attention from the media and were well covered by the newspapers, television, and radio stations, as well as online portals in the country and the region.

World Minds, the global conference, brings together first-class speakers and world’s leaders in science, art and business, people whose driving force are passion and curiosity. The conference is known to be an intellectual highlight of the year and one of the most vibrant and inspiring communities in the world. The aim of the conference is encouraging inspirational exchange of ideas and better understanding of the innovation driven growth. For the first time, it was organized in Belgrade, Serbia. Vesna Bengin, the coordinator of the ANTARES project participated in several editions, presenting the results of BioSense and ANTARES. She highlighted the potential benefits of digitization of the whole agricultural sector: „The new age of agriculture is age of data, sensors and artificial intelligence. We use science and digital technologies to provide farmers with advice, but also to provide all of us with enough food, safe and high-quality food, with enough drinking water, sustainable environment and finally, we create prosperous society”, she stated.

Dr Ivana Gadjanski, researcher from BioSense was invited to participate in the SciFoo Camp 2019. All the participants had the chance to propose a topic for the Lightning talks. Ivana's talk „Biosensors and Lab-grown meat “was selected among 200 applications and she received great feedback. She also introduced the ANTARES project to the attendees. This kind of networking is generally important for spreading scientific excellence, exploring research frontiers, and making solid foundations for gainful cooperation.