DSS will double the budget allowances for science, initiate new laws which will speed up the development of the IT sector, allow the education of young experts and the continuing education of those employed.
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The strategic goal of the DSS in this area is to increase economic development, primarily in the IT sector employment, facilitate the work and ways of life of citizens, increase access to education, health services and information of general interest.
Greater investments in the IT sector: The process of computerization of Serbia is associated with a much larger support to investments in building information and communication infrastructure, timely adoption of legislation governing this area, with the launching of national projects in the field of management of electronic governance, digital literacy and higher incentives in the field of computer science research and telecommunications.
Domestic IT resources for production and exports are largely untapped because of the way in which domestic regulations define what a domestic product is, due to the ambiguous status of the IT sector in exports of IT services, the use of export incentives and the like. According to current regulations and their interpretation they disenable domestic IT companies from getting a certificate of origin of goods from Serbia.
Education – a prerequisite for computerization: The main prerequisite for the successful development of an information society and knowledge-based economy is the educational level of employees and the youth who are being educated. In this sense, education is a prerequisite for computerization, and it has two important aspects: education for becoming IT professionals and education in other areas, by using the methods and means of information technology. It is therefore necessary to:
1. Give priority to education related to the development and application of information technology
2. Ensure a steady growth of investment in information and communication infrastructure
3. Develop the computer literacy of teachers
4. Ensure a constant renewal of IT assets
5. Create conditions for attracting and retaining IT professionals in educational institutions
New laws – a rapid development of the IT Sector: For a successful construction and operation of the information society strong emphasis should be paid to building the institutional and legal framework. Barriers must be removed to the competition, innovation and development and application of advanced services based on information and communication technologies and protecting the economic interests of investors and clients of the sector.
As the availability of information can jeopardize the privacy of citizens, it is necessary to ensure personal data protection and integrity of the citizens and companies through protection against illicit production and dissemination of information via the Internet. For buying and selling via the Internet should be provided tax incentive mechanisms, such as exemption from local tax payments, reducing taxes on imports of software used for business purposes and the like. It is necessary to define methods for the protection of ICT solutions and patents in order to prevent violations of copyrights and patents granted in the country and abroad.
Universal broadband telecommunications services should be available to every potential user and it should provide a minimum nominal bandwidth of 256KB/s for incoming traffic and 128 KB/s for outgoing.
The development of scientific-research activities: We are committed to increasing allocations for specific projects of developmental and innovative character. The commercialization of development results will be a financial, but also a strategic goal of investments into science in the middle term, while participation in projects of basic research will be stimulated through the involvement of an international network of institutions which, for this purpose, have all the necessary resources.
DSS is committed to double investments in science budget, in the next two years already, provided that wage financing is reduced, and to significantly improve the financing of project results, making these payments loose the character of cost and becoming an investment.
Increasing the economic benefits from investment into scientific research will be achieved by stimulating greater investment into the formation of scientific-research units, labs, institutes and centers of economic organizations.
In order to better coordinate research institutions, DSS is committed to the functional and institutional integration of network management of higher education and independent research institutes, through the unification of the Ministries of Education and Science, which would contribute not only to reduce public spending but also facilitate the networking of institutions, provide greater mobility of ideas and people, and reduce overlapping in management …
The development of information communication technology will lead to a multiple increase of intellectual innovation potential in the country and increase efficiency for the benefit of the general development of society.
