Prof. Dr. Snezana Bilic, Vice Rector of International Balkan University, gave an interview to the Faktor Magazine on Innovation Scoring and the role of universities in improving a country's innovation performance.

She highlights key factors shaping North Macedonia’s innovation index, from research investments and doctoral students to international scientific collaborations. While progress has been made, challenges remain in R&D funding, business sector collaboration, and ICT training.

Below you can read the full interview in English or click here to read the interview in Macedonian:

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"Innovation Scoring, How to Improve Innovation Scores"

Innovation scoring involves monitoring a broad range of indicators, from research and development expenditures to the number of doctoral students, providing valuable insights into the country's innovation landscape. The analyses offer good recommendations on where the country should direct its policy and investment efforts. According to the Global Innovation Index, North Macedonia is classified in the group of Emerging Innovators with a performance of 45.1% of the EU average in 2024.

1. How can universities contribute to increasing the innovation index?

Universities contribute to improving performance in the "framework conditions" group, especially regarding the attractiveness of research systems and human resources. North Macedonia has shown positive performance and progress in increasing the population with tertiary education, raising the number of doctoral students, and increasing the number of joint international scientific publications. The country’s greatest success is in the enrollment of foreign students in doctoral studies as a percentage of the total number of enrolled students. The area that still requires progress is the number of cited scientific papers and joint international publications with the business sector, where the results of practice and applied research should be promoted.

2. What are the weaknesses that need to be improved in the future to enhance ranking?

Weak results are observed in the "investment indicators" and "innovative activity indicators" groups. A chronic problem for years has been the direct and indirect support from the government for research and development, the investment of the business community in research and development, as well as research and development in the public sector. The number of companies offering and investing in ICT training is very low, as is the number of applications for intellectual property protection in the Design sector. Additionally, the number of people involved in lifelong learning training needs to be increased to acquire advanced skills.

3. What are the positive achievements?

Innovation scoring showed that where there is a continuous national strategy and program, supported by financial instruments, progress is made. For example, the development of environmental-related technologies, which increased by 94.6% in points compared to 2023, is the result of the country's efforts toward the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans and the implementation of the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP). Investments through the Innovation and Technological Development Fund also improved resource productivity and contributed to the export of medium- and high-tech products and services. A specific feature in North Macedonia is that there are innovators who do not invest in their innovations but still come up with inventions.