On 17^th March 2023, the closing conference of the EU Twinning project “Supporting inter-sectoral collaboration possibilities between Research and Industry” was held in Tbilisi.

The EU-funded Twinning project assisted Georgia in strengthening the collaboration between science and business. The 3-year project, with a budget of € 1 300 000, aimed to address the priorities and challenges in Georgia’s Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) system by ensuring an interdisciplinary approach, collaborative research and promoting evidence-based policy implementation in line with the EU-Georgia Association Agreement. The project brought Austrian, German and Latvian experts together with Georgian colleagues to enhance the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia (SRNSFG) capacity.

With the EU support, the project team worked to improve SRNSFG’s existing programmes and operational activities in response to national priorities and socio-economic challenges, considering regional and international contexts. The project focused on establishing dialogues with and among various stakeholders.

EU Twinning Project Leader Wolfgang Polt from Joanneum Research, Austria and Junior Project Leader Kirsten Kienzler from the DLR Project Management Agency, Germany, provided the keynote speech and presented the recommendations for STI system development that was prepared in the framework of the project.

Over 120 representatives of the EU, Government, State and Private Universities, enterprises, international donor organisations and civil society participated in the closing ceremony of Smart Georgia’s “New beginnings for the inter-sectoral collaboration possibilities between Science and Business”.

At the project closing ceremony, Mr Erekle Astakhishvili, the Director General of SRNSFG, emphasised the significant achievements of the Twinning project. The main project activities were: the development and revision of the grant call for inter-sectoral dialogue promotion, the development of the strategic documents, the identification of the scientific priorities for science and business collaboration, and science popularisation.

Mr Wolfgang Polt, the Project Leader from Joanneum Research, Austria, mentioned that “it is very important to have a joint task force between different authorities in promoting science business collaboration”. He added that “taking into account the experiences and examples of other countries, the collaboration and establishment of a clear division of tasks and responsibilities facilitates the innovation and science ecosystem development”.

Meanwhile, Ms Inese Gavarane, the Resident Twinning Advisor, mentioned that the closing ceremony is the start of the new phase of the inter-sectoral dialogue in Georgia. It is widely known that Georgia is the cradle of the first innovations. Georgia can become one of the innovation leaders by facilitating tight collaboration between scientists and businesses and promoting the identified priority areas for applied research.

The EU Twinning project was implemented by Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia with the support of Environment Agency Austria (Umweltbundesamt GmbH) in partnership with Joanneum Research, Austria, Austrian Science Fund, Austrian Research Promotion Agency, DLR Project Management Agency, Germany and Daugavpils University, Latvia.

Contact information:

Ms Inese Gavarane, Resident Twinning Advisor, EU Funded Twinning Project, “Supporting inter-sectoral  collaboration possibilities between Research and Industry”, inese.gavarane@du.lv