Nowadays, the South-Eastern Europe (SEE) faces a challenge to increase the innovation capacity as a basic precondition for achieving sustainable growth and competitiveness on the global market. The new strategic direction of the SEE is based upon the ambitious goal to follow the leading world economies and to attain the EU membership. This implies the necessity for SEE countries to adjust towards the main EU developments. In this context, the new EU strategic framework underlines the role of SMEs as a driving force of the European economy. The knowledge intensity and innovation capability of SMEs are becoming the basic pillars for competitiveness and prosperity of the economies. These trends are actually the rationale and idea for organizing a conference that will be focused on further clarification of the role and importance of the innovative SMEs for improving the SEE economic performance.
Conference goal
The main goal of the Conference is to highlight many aspects of the contemporary changes in the SEE countries aimed at increasing innovation and achieving sustainable growth. More specifically, the conference will create a platform for presenting different academic and professional approaches (conceptual, empirical, multidisciplinary, case studies, etc.) and debates about the SMEs innovation developments in the SEE countries. The Conference will provide an opportunity for researchers, practitioners, PhD students and policy makers to give their contribution in considering the issues from theoretical and empirical point of view. In addition, it will offer the possibility to exchange the ideas, build partnerships, share knowledge and experience related to perspectives for improving the SMEs innovation capabilities and enriching the scientific achievements.

Thematic fields

SMEs Internationalization and Innovation
ICT impact on the competitiveness of SMEs
Open innovation for SMEs growth
Innovation policies in SEE
Innovation Management in knowledge-based economy
Challenges of the Social Innovation in SEE