A Case of Knowledge Transfer Between Research and Industrial Organizations in the Romania - Serbia Border Region

The article presents the research results gained during a cross-border cooperation projects between Romania and Serbia. The researches done tried to fill-up the needs for a long-term strategy and the needs to establish means of intensifying the interaction processes through the Research - Industry – Investment development triangle, which can be a driver for a long-term development of a value-added oriented industry, and the introduction of new technological dimension for the European Union integration processes inside the particular cross-border area. The main rationale was driven by the low interaction between research and development performers and small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in the cross border area. In addition, there have been identified a dire need for a number of SME’s to achieve a technological compatibility level with the European Union and because usually the SME’s do not have the specialized staff to tackle all the necessary issues related to manufacturing processes modernization (up-date and reengineering) and/or to European standards compliancy. Through the research approach, a technological screening of the Romania – Serbia cross-border technological needs were made and based on the results there were defined benefits for SMSs from both countries, related to technological consultancy via a voucher system. The research presented in this article are linked with the results of our implication in the “Partnership and technological support for cooperation between R&D and SMEs in the border region” project, financed by Romania and Republic of Serbia, in the context of IPA Cross-Border Cooperation Programme.