Serbia Innovates Progress Report 1 and 2 2021

The project will recognize Serbia's most promising domains of innovation and enable the formation of the first Serbian supercluster in this field, as a top-level innovation ecosystem and globally proven model providing a systematic approach in overcoming institutional, financial, and organizational barriers in the development of innovative solutions within the Serbian economy. The project will partner with private, public, and financial institutions, the Serbian education system, business associations, and a variety of other service providers, in order to create a support system for innovative business initiatives. Its supercluster model, as a globally proven methodology, represents an effective platform for promoting and enforcing innovation development, building innovation-friendly environments, and providing adequate institutional support and sufficient financing. The project will increase collaboration among key stakeholders in the selected domain, leading to the expansion of innovation value chains in the domain and creating synergies that will lead to the emergence of adequate financing options for innovative companies in the early stage of their development. The project will address five growth obstacles directly affecting the knowledge economy: low connectivity density and low collaboration among innovation and economy's key stakeholders in Serbia, short innovation value chains, lack of cooperation between innovative and traditional companies, lack of cooperation between innovative companies and financial institutions, and lack of financing options for innovative companies in the early stage of development. In order to drastically increase chances for success, it is crucial to utilize all capacities to overcome institutional, financial, and organizational gaps that currently prevent optimal innovation development in the traditional economy. Establishment of a supercluster will be reached by the following, sequential objectives: detecting four most prominent domains, testing their potential in a real environment by conducting four separate supercluster pilots for chosen domains, selecting the most prominent domain and scaling it up (engaging additional stakeholders), and simultaneously, financing activities will be created. The development of the first Serbian supercluster will intensify collaboration between key stakeholders, resulting in a higher number of Serbian innovative companies in the domain, more made-in-Serbia innovations, more traditional companies buying innovative solutions, more complete value chains, forming of specialized hubs, more talent, companies, and experts drawn to Serbia, and constant creation of new collaborations between traditional corporations, SMEs, and start-ups. The project has made significant progress in the first two quarters, with all preparation activities completed in accordance with the annual plan and planned deadlines. The project offices have been established in Belgrade, and the staff onboarding process has been completed, with key positions filled, including the Project Director/Chief of Party, Finance Director, Finance Coordinator, Access to Finance Task Leader, Communication Manager, Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Expert, Project Coordinator, and Project Coordinator. The recruitment process is ongoing for the remaining position, Supercluster Task Leader. The project has also conducted a comprehensive research to collect, process, and interpret all relevant data related to the density of human, social, and economic capital, geographic concentration of firms, start-ups, industries, technologies, and R&D entities. The identification of key drivers of innovation ecosystem development has been completed, and detecting up to ten potential competitive domains in the Serbian economy is ongoing. The project has also organized a two-day retreat in Vrsac, gathering 20 people, employees of Serbia Innovates and ICT Hub, to discuss new procedures implemented within NUPAS recommendations, conduct finance training, and define how Serbia Innovates project activities will be integrated and streamlined with other ICT Hub Units.