Project “Educational Capacity Strengthening for Risk Management of Non-native Aquatic Species in Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro) - RiskMan” accepted within ERASMUS+ program

Within the EU call for Cooperation for the innovation and the exchange of good practices program, the project titled “Educational Capacity Strengthening for Risk Management of Non-native Aquatic Species in Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro) - RiskMan”, in which University of Sarajevo-Institute for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (INEGB) participates as a partner, was accepted to be supported within the framework of the Joint Projects action.

This year, 1005 applications were submitted from all over the world to the call for "Capacity Building Projects in the Field of Higher Education", which is considered among the most prestigious projects at the international level. Only 164 studies were found successful among the applications, with only 19% success rate for the Western Balkans region.

RiskMan Project Consortium consists of partners from eight different countries: Turkey, Italy, Northern Macedonia, Greece, Croatia, Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Apart from INGEB, other partner institutions from Bosnia and Herzegovina are the Faculty of Science, University of Sarajevo and the Biotechnical Faculty, University of Bihać. The coordinator of the Consortium is Mugla Sıtkı Koçman University, Turkey.

The main objective of the RiskMan Project is to increase the education of stakeholders and higher education students and to strengthen the risk management education capacity of foreign invasive aquatic species in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. By establishing a comprehensive set of measures on invasive species, the project aims to improve the ability of local target groups to mitigate and actively prevent potential adverse impacts on the socio-ecological system of the consortium member countries.