Today, a TAM follow-up meeting was held in the premises of the Rectorate building of the University of Montenegro, organized after HERE seminar entitled “Intellectual property rights and copyrights at higher education institutions” which was organized at the initiative of the Montenegrin Higher Education Reform Experts, in cooperation with the SPHERE network, consisting of OBREAL Global (coordinator), the European University Association (EUA), and the National Erasmus+ Office in Montenegro. The guest lecturer in this seminar was Mr. Filippo Silipigni (Senior Project Manager, Fondazione Politecnico di Milano).
The aim of the follow-up activity was to acquaint the academic community with the conclusions of the seminar and to prepare specific recommendations for further work, so that the outcomes and results of the mentioned HERE seminar are sustainable.
The meeting was attended by relevant representatives of the academic community, as well as members of the HERE team who spoke about this topic from their perspective.
After the introduction speech of Ms. Vanja Drljević, head of the National Erasmus+ office in Montenegro, who explained to the attendees the importance of organizing this type of activity, which, as already mentioned, aims to enable the sustainability of the results and outcomes of the HERE seminar, the attendees were addressed by prof. Mira Vukčević, president of the HERE team, who talked about intellectual property rights and the importance of this topic for the higher education system. Ms. Marina Banović, Counselor to the rector of the University of Montenegro, presented the process of creating an intellectual property policy at the University of Montenegro, and she also spoke about the challenges that the university is currently facing in terms of providing an organizational structure. The attendees were also addressed by prof. Sandra Tinaj, General manager of the University of Donja Gorica, who discussed this topic from the perspective of the aforementioned university, a different approach to this topic, the so-called the Learning by doing approach, and also the challenges we face.
Representatives of the academic community, including members of the HERE team, actively participated in the discussion. They talked about various challenges related to this topic from their perspective (establishing a general framework for all issues related to intellectual property rights and copyright, defining the role of copyright etc.) Ms. Dragana Ranitović, Head of the Directorate for Intellectual Property from the Ministry of Economic Development of Montenegro, also took an active role in the meeting, and she explained in more detail specific rules and procedures related to this topic.
It was agreed to organize an event in the form of an Open Day event for Montenegrin universities, because this kind of event would bring this topic closer to the academic community.
During this meeting, further steps to strengthening cooperation between higher education institutions and relevant public sector institutions were proposed, aiming at joint action and a better understanding of this important topic for the academic community. The guidelines for establishing the future office, which would deal with issues of intellectual property rights at a systemic level, were also proposed and discussed.
