New Green Innovation Vouchers awarded in Serbia

The second award ceremony of the Green Innovation Vouchers Scheme took place in Belgrade in the presence of the EBRD management including Alain Pilloux, Vice President for Banking; Charlotte Ruhe, Managing Director for Central and South Eastern Europe; and Zsuzsanna Hargitai, the new Director for Western Balkans based in Belgrade who has just taken up her post.

The EBRD evaluation committee has approved new 11 projects to receive a total of €150,000. The awarded projects cover various fields such as precision agriculture, waste management, energy conservation, renewables and eco-friendly products.

Among the awarded projects this time is DunavNet, in cooperation with the Institute of Food Technology, University of Novi Sad develops an IoT platform for grain storage management. The platform will incorporate models of various grains and silos as well as remote moisture and temperature sensors and based on all that suggest when, where and how much to dry and treat the stored grains; it will improve quality of grains and at the same time conserve energy and minimise pesticide use.

Other projects aim at reusing waste materials such as waste Tetra Pak packages, making eco-friendly corrosion inhibitors and adhesives out of plant extracts and starch, or developing new solutions for increased use of renewable energy.

The Green Innovation Vouchers Scheme aims to increase the innovation capacity of small and medium-sized enterprises in the field of green technologies and resource efficiency, and to support Serbia’s long-term economic competitiveness and climate resilience. The third call for applications will be open from  until 30 September 2018. Interested SMEs should submit the application form in cooperation with their selected R&D service provider(s) to inovacionivauceri@ebrd.rs.