Enhancing capacity of universities to initiate and to participate in clusters development on innovation and sustainability principles

Aim of the project: Development of the potential of universities as an integral part of agro-industrial clusters by the creation of expertise centres as pre-conditions for the development and successful functioning of agro-industrial clusters.These objectives will be achieved through the following activities:- Organization of workshops, consultations, round-tables in order to present the concept of clusters and to share ideas concerning creation of expertise centers supposed to be transformed into the cluster;- Training of HEIs and enterprises staff by workshops and study tours;- Development of legal framework for expertise centres creation: Statutes of expertise centers, post cards, work regulations. Amendments will be done in development strategies of participating HEIs and enterprises;- Creation expertise centers on following areas: water management and aquaculture, new technologies (IT) in machinery, rural tourism, milk production and processing with the focus on traditional local products, biotechnologies in poultry farming;- Development and launching of new modules for Master and PhD students as added value;- Launching of pilot projects: the projects will be defined according to enterprises needs and universities possibilities for scientific elaborations and their application on practice;- The students’ mobility will be organized in two ways from partner countries to EU and from EU to partner countries;- In addition to traditional dissemination activities the project foresees the information and promotion campaign among stakeholder to disseminate the EU experience of clusters activity.Expected impacts:creation of sustainale relations between HEIs and enterprises based on win-win pronciples, enhancing of practical value of researches; creation of conditions for better integration of innovations into production on the sustainability principles; development of entrepreneurial capacities of HEIs, contribution to the development of local area.