1. RRCC Portal Introduction
Aleksandar Belić
Ministry of Science, Technology and Development
Republic of Serbia

2. RRCC – bacground information
Ministerial Conference Sofia,
Decision to create the Regional Research Coordination Committee (RRCC) as a permanent body responsible to the Regional Conference of SEE Ministers for Science and Research
Participating countries: Albania, B&H,Bulgaria, Croatia, FYROM, Greece, Romania, S&M, Turkey
Agreed mission in the Action Plan
The RRCC host country is nominated on the rotational principle with one year mandate; For the first year, the host organization is the Ministry of Science, Technology and Development of the Republic of Serbia (MSTD).
MSTD should
collect the proposals
organize of the first Committee meeting.

3. RRCC tasks
To organize the development of the RRCC Portal, providing relevant information about each of the countries such as:
statistical data for the national research activities;
specific national legislation;
national scientific programs opened for other countries;
current projects; announced competitions, etc.
Other tasks:
To coordinate the regional cooperative activities in R&D and to report regularly to the ministerial meetings
To foster the establishment of consultation bureaus to help the development of joint proposals.
To establish a working group of experts for identifying the fields of common interest.
To develop the regional dimensions and interconnections of the national academic information and communication networks to reach adequate linking with the Gigabit European Academic Network (GEANT).
To advise on the appropriate measures related to regional infrastructure program.
To strengthen the regional dimension of the network of the NCPs.
To organize regional training seminars and comparative analysis of the evaluative activities on scientific innovative projects.
To develop a common format and establish a database of peer reviewers for national projects from SEE countries.
To propose measures and/or schemes for support of young scientists in the region.

4. 1st RRCC meeting
Held in Thessaloniki on on the eve of the High Level Officials Meeting for the EU-Western Balkan countries Action Plan in S&T
Participants: High Level Officials from 9 countries (Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, FYROM, Greece, Romania, Slovenia, S&M, Turkey), and UNESCO-ROSTE
Conclusions: …
A meeting of experts from Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia, and any other interested country from SEE has to be organized in Sofia in two weeks time aimed at drafting a project proposal for 6th FP concerning the RRCC Portal and including as participants institutions and experts from the region. The Ministries of Science have to designate the names of the expert not later than 28th of February to Minister Domazet.

5. RRCC Portal Organization
Vision from Thessaloniki
Country
Editor
Country
Editor
Country
Editor
Country
Editor
Chef Editor
Data
Administrator
Data
Administrator
Portal
Administrator
Data
Administrator
Data
Administrator
Portal Hosting
Organization
(University of Niš)
Portal SW
SEE Countries
Server

6. RRCC Portal Purpose Research Information Services Research
Organizations
National
Research
Service
Center
National
Research
Service
Center
National
Research
Service
Center
RRCC
Portal
Researchers
Service SW

7. EU Action Plan Support
Thessaloniki Ministerial meeting workprogramme: “Creating a common RRCC Internet portal: this initiative could be implemented through a Specific Support Action in FP6.”
Florence EU Action Plan Ad hoc Group meeting; workrogramme 2004: “Strengthen the common RRCC internet portal: This initiative could be implemented through a Specific Support Action in FP6.”

8. SEEnergy proposal Submitted in March 2003. in as an INCO-WB SSA
Duration: 24 months;
Funds requested: Euro
Consortium composition:
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nis, Serbia and Montenegro
Ministry of Education and Science, Albania
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department for International ST Cooperation, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ministry of Science and Technology, Croatia
Ministry of Education and Science, F.Y.R.O.M.
Ministry of Education and Science, Montenegro, Serbia and Montenegro
Ministry of Science, Technology and Development, Serbia, Serbia and Montenegro
Ministry of Education and Science, Bulgaria
National Documentation Center, Greece
West University of Timisoara, Romania
TUBITAK-Scientific and Technological Research Council, Turkey

9. SEEnergy proposal Abstract
In order to improve regional cooperation in R&D field, the ministers for R&D of South East Europe (SEE) countries have
created Regional Research Coordination Committee (RRCC) for SEE as a permanent body. One of the conclusions of the
first RRCC meeting, held on in Thessaloniki, was to establish the joint web portal as an instrument for
cooperation. This initiative was further supported by the High Level Officials meeting held on in
Thessaloniki, and incorporated in the “EU-Western Balkan countries Action Plan in Science and Technology” and Specific
Actions for Candidate countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey) and Workprogramme documents adopted therein.
The purpose of SEEnergy portal is to facilitate cooperation between SEE countries, as well as between SEE and EU
countries in the R&D field.
The portal will be managed by the portal management system SiteGenius donated by Ministry of Science, Technology and
Development of Republic of Serbia. The SiteGenius portal management system enables national portal editors (NPEs) from
different SEE countries to perform remote portal content editing by using Internet.
The objectives of this project are to define the necessary portal content and functionality, to organize the training of NPEs, to fill-in the content, and
to establish conditions for permanent portal functioning and evolving. In order to accomplish these objectives, following action plan is foreseen:
WP1 Preparation of the preliminary version of the portal content
WP2 Defining portal content and functionality requirements
WP3 Setting-up full version of portal
WP4 Training of NPEs
WP5 Filling-in the static data
WP6 Filling-in the dynamic data
WP7 Presentation of results
In parallel with these activities, continuous management and maintenance activities (WP8) will be organized.

10. SEEnergy proposal
The proposal has had all the political backing needed
It was the only technically valid proposal in that call (with total amount available 0.6 MEuro)
It was approved by the expert evaluation in June
But was not supported because SSA could not support purchase of hardware
EC suggestion (emphasis by AB):
“Although your proposal obtained the minimum threshold scores against the evaluation criteria as described in work programme, the proposal could not be retained for funding for absence of conformity with Community policies”.
“Hence, Community funding in the frame of “Specific measures in support of International Cooperation” can be provided only for the content of the portal, which, in case of resubmission should be adequately described and should correspond to the objectives of the Work programme. The possibilities for networking following the construction of such portal would then be very interesting”.

11. SEEnergy proposal – what next
RRCC Portal has been created. HW & SW was donated by the Government of Republic of Serbia.
National Portal editors were appointed, and training session organized.
The proposal will be resubmitted in March 2004.
The funding will be requested for the creation of content only.
The relevant MoU will be sent to consortium members in beginning of February.