Priboj to get Regional Innovation Center – Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad to open new department?

With the opening of the free zone and the revival of the arms industry thanks to the recovery of FAP and the employment of around 600 people, Priboj has not just initiated the industrial recovery but might soon get a regional innovation center.

The good news was brought to the town on the Lim by the minister without a portfolio in charge of innovation and technology, Nenad Popovic, who summed up the results of the cooperation between the state and the municipal authorities in the past three years during his meeting with the head of the local self-government, Lazar Rvovic, and the member of the national parliament from Priboj, Krsto Janjusevic.

– This area should be an example for everyone in Serbia, how something entirely new and positive can develop from apathy – Popovic pointed out following a visit to the Mechanical-Electrical Engineering School, where a full reconstruction is taking place, and Free Zone Priboj.

It is exactly the free zone that has become the pride of the town, as seven foreign companies employ over 300 local people there. Unfortunately, the main obstacle to having even better results is the lack of engineers and workers in the technical and mechanical sector. One of the solutions is the establishment of a department of the Faculty of Technical Sciences.

As Popovic revealed, the talks about the arrival of the Faculty of Technical Sciences to Priboj are in progress and the said Mechanical and Electrical Engineering School, which is becoming one of the most modern schools in the country thanks to the state's investments, will play a significant role in the industrial and technological revolution in this part of Serbia, among other things, by educating a larger number of engineers.

Rvovic said that Popovic's visit was another confirmation of the government's willingness to help Priboj and that the systemic approach to exiting the crisis had already given results, while Janjusevic reminded that the Free Zone was one of the most modern ones in Serbia.

Strategy development

As part of the development of the strategy for bringing new investors from Europe and Russia to Priboj, the opening of an innovation and startup center in the town on the Lim was also discussed, and it was agreed that such a project would provide the much needed support to young people in the entire region.