Digital entrepreneurial nest and industry 4.0 in Montenegro (DigN€st)

Digital research centres and universities have a key leading role in digitization process of industries, strengthening cooperation with national economies, capable to provide expert knowledge and support to their local industries, as well as to help them to cooperate with innovators, investors and customers all across Europe and globally. However, collaboration and networking are also essential to ensure best practices can be exported to other regions, and missing expertise can be imported, ensuring an efficient innovation ecosystem.

That is a reason why the project is focused to SUPPORT MODERNIZATION OF HEIs IN MONTENEGRO, TO ENHANCE THEIR COOPERATION WITH WIDER BUSINESSES IN ORDER TO MAXIMISE THE BENEFITS FROM DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES IN PRIORITY AREAS OF AGRICULTURE AND HEALTH WHILE ENSURING THAT STUDENTS GRADUATES, FUTURE EXPERTS AND THE WORKSFORCE ARE ADAPTING TO THE DIGITAL AREA.

Specific objectives:

• Strengthening the relation between HEIs and national economy in Montenegro through creation of MNE ACADEMIC HUB strongly connected with national ecosystem, capitalizing from excellence in research and available capacities in priority fields of agriculture and health, and other initiatives rooted in Smart Specialisation Strategy;
• ENHANCEMENT OF THE LEVEL OF COMPETENCIES AND SKILLS of staff members from HEIs by sharing experience, expert knowledge and digital skills for local economy; respecting the diversity of national, EU and global industries, challenges and the level of innovations;
• STRENTHENING THE QUALITY OF HE through new forms of practical training schemes and study of digitized labour market in priority fields of agriculture and health;
• Strengthening INTERNATIONALIZATION OF HEIs, including networking with other digital innovation hubs and competency centres, sharing knowledge and complementing expertise.

Successful realization of specified objectives will directly improve current situation in MNE in beneficiary field of digitization and HEI support to digitization process, by providing grounds for (i) sustainable human capacities building and national level (making them capable to support, implement and lead digitization process) and (ii) students entrepreneurship and higher employment of students (that are gained with practical digital knowledge and skills). More specifically:

• Newly established MNE ACADEMIC DIH (o1) is expected to integrate available resources at leading MNE HEIs and provide support to digitization process of MNE, through its sets of services:
• Digital Education services are focused on providing practical digital skills for students, technical training and skills development, internship programs, work on real projects and employment support (thus meeting the needs of tg1.1);
• Digital Business Support services that are focused on support and mentoring in developing business ideas, start-up support and support in accessing to funding opportunities (thus meeting the needs of tg1.1);
• Innovation & Cooperation services focused on creation of awareness around digital technologies (thus meeting the needs of tg2, tg3, tg4.1, tg 4.2), expert support in making assessments and identification of digitization potentials (meeting the needs of tg4.1, tg4.2, tg2, th1.2) and collaborative research (meeting the needs of tg1.3, tg4.1, tg4.2, tg2)