UMNE and MASA Organize Conference “Science and Small Countries: Synergy of Diaspora and Mainstream with Friends of Montenegro

The University of Montenegro (UMNE) and the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (MASA) are organizing a scientific meeting that will bring together scientific diaspora and friends of Montenegro who have near or far origins from our area. The scientific symposium entitled Science and Small Countries: Synergy of the Diaspora and Motherland with Friends of Montenegro will be held in Podgorica on November 2 and 3, 2022.

The meeting will focus on scientific disciplines covered by Department of Natural Sciences of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts, and will take place in five sessions. Proposals for speakers per session are considered and determined by a commission made up of representatives of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts and the University of Montenegro. Each session will be chaired by members of the Natural Sciences Department of MASA and representatives of UMNE, who will also take part in the meeting.

First, as part of opening, in addition to individual introductory speeches and lectures, a short film (30 minutes) will be shown with greetings and accompanying messages sent to MASA by 20 Nobel Prize winners who have collaborated with CANU members in their previous work.

The first session is about medicine. The speakers will be from Columbia University in New York, from universities in Canada, Poland and Croatia, from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, from the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade, the Military Medical Academy and from the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SASA).

The second session is about mathematics. The speakers will be from universities in Arizona, Boston, Beijing, Tirana, Belgrade (from the Faculty of Mathematics), and from SASA.

Third session is about natural sciences. The speakers are from the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the USA, from Yale University, the universities of Texas, Novi Sad and Belgrade, as well as from SANU. Fourth session is about engineering sciences. The speakers are from the universities of MIT, Harvard, Purdue and Indiana in the USA, from the University of Manchester, from the European Academy of Sciences in London, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, from the universities of Novi Sad and Belgrade, as well as from SAN. This session is thematically divided into two sub-sessions. Fifth session is about computer engineering. Speakers are from the CMU University in Pittsburgh, USC in Los Angeles, the European Academy in London, the Technion University in Israel, the universities in Zagreb, Kragujevac and Belgrade, the "Ruđer Bošković" Institute in Zagreb, the Mathematics Institute in Belgrade, as well as from SAN. The meeting will take place in two formats. Speakers will have presentations lasting 15 minutes, plenary (time is limited in order to better follow the presentations due to the wide range of topics covered). After one session ends, it is planned that the speakers from that session, and part of the audience focused on that session, will develop a discussion in two separate halls. In order to achieve a close connection between the homeland and the diaspora, it is planned that the lecturers will not only speak ex cathedra, but that a smaller number of specialized participants with a close scientific profile (experts and students alike) will discuss at a round table. In a special session, entitled Examples of good practice, researchers from Montenegro will speak (15 minutes each) about their experiences of cooperation with researchers from diaspora. The main goal of the meeting is to bring together the scientific diaspora and the scientific motherland of Montenegro through the establishment of concrete forms of cooperation on initiation and implementation of joint scientific projects, study programs of research and improvement, etc. Since no one in Montenegro knows all the speakers from the same profession, and especially not all those who will come from abroad and who cover all professions (in addition to the individual, so far achieved, acquaintances through the profession/science or through other types of connections of speakers from and outside of Montenegro), the meeting was designed to have a wider, social component. It reflects the permanent commitment of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts, as the highest institution in the field of science and art in Montenegro, and the University of Montenegro, as the oldest institution of higher education in Montenegro, to gather top scientific knowledge from around the world, and for the purpose of developing and affirming our scientific potential that will contribute to the progress and well-being of the citizens of Montenegro.