During the 2019 D-STIR project has entered to its final phase, where partners from Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are utilizing results already generated by the project. Partners are implementing and evaluating in-depth RRI actions in academic and business pilots according to each organisation priorities and policies, level of innovation/RRI experiences, existing management procedures and human resources availability.

Partners from 8 countries are actively involved in improving conditions within organisations of Danube region by developing their internal processes ( e.g solutions for improving the time management in project implementation, support for creation of a long-term business strategy of responsible business development, marketing and communication strategies), educating their employees, general public and stakeholders within experts workshops related with responsible research and innovation topic. All of these activities will take place within the scope of RRI and will be published as form of good practices for further inspiration and utilization.

But consortium’s goal is also to find new ways how to finance STIR and RRI initiatives from both public and private funds on multiple levels national, regional and local. Partners of D-STIR project hope to develop further projects based on this screening of funding opportunities. These will be available for stakeholders of target groups: SMEs, Higher Education and Research Institutions, Regional Public Authorities, Business Support Organisations and Interest Groups including NGOs.

In the scope of these initiatives and work flow of D-STIR project consortium of partners gathered for 7th transnational project event and study visit held during 16th-17th of April, in Prague, Czech Republic. The events wereas organised by Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Central Bohemian Innovation Centre (partners from Czech Republic) providing input from pilots activities in academic and business environment.This meeting clearly showed that interregional exchange of experiences between partners already crucially contributed to finding differences and commonalities between countries and organisations from Danube region under the topic RRI.

The study-visit held at ELI Beamlines research center located in Dolní Břežany on the outskirts of Prague showed an international user facility for fundamental and applied research using ultra-intense laser and particle beams. ELI Beamlines is part of the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) project, a new Research Infrastructure of pan-European interest and part of the European Strategy Forum on Research (ESFRI) Roadmap. ELI will be a multi-sited Research Infrastructure with complementary facilities located in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania (all partner institutions within D-STIR) for the investigation of light-matter interactions at the highest intensities and shortest time scales.

Moreover, partners had the opportunity to visit Genrex Ltd premises, a research company for detecting genetic profiles at animals where the D-STIR method was tested for 12 weeks. The company focuses on close cooperation with academia in terms of offering tailored made services for their clients.

Partners’ consortium is anticipating 8th transnational project event and Final Conference in Braila, Romania which will be organized by lead partner of D-STIR project – South-East Regional Development Agency. The event will take place between 25th and 26th June 2019.

Meeting took place in the premises of ELI-Beamlines

Embeded humanists received diploma on their successful STIR training