Nanoforum - Nanotech Regulatory Document Archive

14. Slovenia
14.1. General information
The Republic of Slovenia is a central European country with 2 million inhabitants. Its
capital is Ljubljana. Main strengths of Slovenian research and development are a
relatively high share of GDP invested in R&D (1.51% in 1999 and 1.57% in 2001), well
established international scientific co-operation and a relatively high number of
researchers. Since 2001, the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport is responsible for
the science policy, while the Ministry of Economy is responsible for the technology
policy. The Slovenian Science policy is actively involved in the creation of the
European Research Area.
As in most technologically oriented countries the Slovenian economy is aiming at
being based on knowledge and new technologies (Science in Slovenia, 2001).
Slovenian national research programme is therefore an integral part of the national
development strategy. It sets some long, medium and short term policy goals,
regarding organisation of research, and identification of priorities in the funding of
scientific research. The goals include research activities; postgraduate education of
R&D personnel; application of research results, transfer of knowledge and building up a
research infrastructure. International S&T collaboration, networking and education are
therefore part of the programme. Up to now, nanoscience or nanotechnology are not
explicitly mentioned among the priority research fields. Slovenia is currently
preparing a new National Research Programme.
Figure 25: Map of Slovenia
(Source: http://forum.europa.eu.int/irc/dsis/candidate/info/data/candidate
countries/slovenia.html)
Slovenia co-operates in science and technology with more than 75 countries
world-wide. It has joined the FP5 formally in August 1999 and has average success rate
30% regarding participation. Most frequent partners are United Kingdom and
Germany, followed by Italy and France. Slovenia has signed formal
intergovernmental agreements in S&T with 22 countries (Science in Slovenia, 2002).
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