Over CHF 1 million for social sciences

BELGRADE - Switzerland will invest more than CHF 1 million in social science projects in Serbia over the next two years, through the Regional Research Promotion Program (RRPP), which focuses on PhD candidates and recent PhD holders.

Scientific research organizations from Serbia will be lead partners on 8 regional projects, which will be carried out by more than 100 researchers from the region, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation said in a release.

Over the past five years, the RRPP has supported more than 50 research projects in the Western Balkans, worth over CHF 3.7 million, including 16 projects in Serbia totaling approximately CHF 1 million, which brought together more than 125 researchers.

The RRPP funds projects in the area of social sciences, aimed at researching and resolving concrete issues faced by communities across the region.

The projects selected in the new phase will try to provide answers, among others, to the following questions - are public policies in Serbia adopted based on intuition or scientific results, what are the informal ways in which the political elite usurps economic resources, and how to reform the tax system and improve the social welfare system in rural areas.

The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation will, through the University of Fribourg, support 21 research projects within the new phase of RRPP, scheduled to last by the end of 2016.

The program is aimed at strengthening and promotion of research in the field of social sciences and its use in reform processes.