university–enterprise cooperation

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professional practice and experience; there is
lack of IT skills, entrepreneurial culture and
customer focus which are needed to help the
students to translate ideas to products that
are commercially viable;
• Employers are generally not involved in the
definition of higher education programmes;
jointly developed programmes can improve
the employability of students and ensure
their relevance to the needs of the labour
market;
• The rate at which individuals are
engaged in Life-long learning is less
then half of the EU25 average;
• State support for small business training is
still limited to business startup, management
and administration. There is little inhouse
or own-funded training effort within
enterprises. There is a need for significant
additional promotional and training effort,
but this will require firstly improving inhouse
capacities of the innovation support
organizations;
• Small business training needs analysis does
not exist or is based on ‘ad hoc’ surveys only,
without systematic collection of data on
the training needs or training consumption
in SMEs, so offered training is not sufficient to
meet enterprise requirements;
• Quality assurance mechanisms for the training
sector is significantly underdeveloped;
• The greater part of the region SME sector
is unable to participate in or benefit
from ongoing training developments, for
reasons of accessibility and costs, so that
public funding is currently the main force
driving the training market.
c) Innovation and competitiveness of
enterprises
• There is a low level of awareness of the
concept of innovation and its role in
economic growth and competitiveness
among general public, policy-makers and
many enterprises;
• Cooperation between universities and
enterprises is generally at a very low
level in terms of technology innovations
and transfer, since there are few support
structures and platforms, and little
dissemination of good practice for existing
cooperation;
• Main barrier to the provision of services
and trainings to enterprises and to more
intensive knowledge and technology
transfer is lack of finance.
Within REPSEE programme (www.see-era.net)
a study on innovation absorption capacity and
transnational cooperation has been conducted,
aims to identify and analyse existing research,
technological development and innovation
cooperation in SEE region, in particular in
the WBC countries. The innovation issues that
have been examined include:
• Innovation role;
• Innovation activities;
• Innovation needs (infrastructure, services,
collaboration & networking, financial support);
• Involvement and interest in collaboration,
networking or mobility activities.
In many cases, universities in WBC are teaching institutions with only a low level of RTD activities,
resulting in questionable quality of university diploma, minor international competitiveness of
graduates and low attractiveness of research career in general.
This problem can only be seen in a wider context, since it is the result of other developments
and factors like e.g. devastation of RTD infrastructure, international isolation, low level of public
funding, gap to international developments (Bologna process), traditional role of universities etc.
Still, also the WBCs face with the requirements set by the Bologna process. In order to accomplish
these objectives, universities in WBC need to undergo the transition process. Here, the renewal of
university curricula and adoption of international standards is a core objective.
Needs/Offers Matrix and Analysis, D.11 / V1.1; 2008
Information Office of the Steering Platform on Research for the Western Balkan Countries; February