Novi Sad, 24 October - President of the AP Vojvodina Assembly, Juhász Bálint, participated today in the opening conference of the project “Improving joint adaptation to climate change and extreme weather conditions through the development of a platform for integral water management - ADAPTisa”, which is financed within the Interreg VI-A IPA Hungary Serbia Programme 2021-2027.
The leading partner on the project is the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad, while the other partners on the project are the Fund “European Affairs” of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, the Water Management Authority for the Lower Tisza area (Hungary), the University of Szeged (Hungary) and the Public Utility Company “Vode Vojvodina” Novi Sad.
President Juhász pointed out that today’s conference is a confirmation that the AP Vojvodina and the Hungarian counties understood quite well the upcoming changes almost two decades ago and started jointly preparing IPA cross-border cooperation projects. He also underscored that in the light of the global fight with the climate change issues, the project of integrated water management on the Tisza River was significant from a scientific, technological and security point of view, since the river Tisza flows through the territory of 12 local self-governments units in Vojvodina, where about 170,000 inhabitants live, and which makes almost 9% of the Vojvodina population.
“Vojvodina has been building windmills of cooperation with cross-border partners for a long time. In the last 17 years, a serious, responsible and professional joint work of teams from Hungarian counties and Vojvodina municipalities on projects, whose implementation period is about 6 years on average, could not result in anything other than success,” said Juhász and added that this project was a continuation of engineering endeavours which had been implemented in the last 150 years, since there the beginning of the works on the construction of a system of dikes for defence against floods, because the river Tisza flooded about 100 kilometres of its coastline every spring.
“Political, economic, scientific and cultural ties between our two communities are deeply preserved in the social history and our memory. They persevere despite changes in political circumstances because the people who built and renewed those ties had the same feature that characterizes today’s creators of joint cross-border cooperation projects. Ant that is perseverance,” President Juhas said.
Provincial Secretary for Higher Education and Scientific Research Prof Branko Markoski, Ph.D., expressed his satisfaction that, for mutual benefit, the “ADAPTisa” project would bring together scientists from universities in Novi Sad and Szeged, as well as companies that managed waters in Serbia and Hungary, over the course of two years.
“For decades, our two countries have developed relations based on mutual trust, friendship and a common vision of progress, in all segments of life and work. The excellent cooperation between the two countries affects scientific research and the cooperation of institutions,” said Prof Markoski and added that the cross-border cooperation we had been fostering was not only a formal framework, but a living and dynamic connection that provides numerous development opportunities. While assessing that through joint projects like “ADAPTisa”, it is possible to achieve effective results that contribute to academic communities but also to society as a whole, Prof Markovski stressed the further support of the Provincial Government and the Secretariat that he led.
The director of the Science and Technology Park Novi Sad, Prof Srđan Kolaković, PhD and the programme manager of the Joint Secretariat of the Interreg IPA Hungary-Serbia programme Olivera Tanacković also spoke about the importance of this project.
The total budget of the project amounts to 1,418,020.16 euros, out of which an amount of 1,205,317.13 euros, i.e. 85 %, is a donation from the European Union. ADAPTisa project aims to develop an Integrated Water Management Platform for the Tisa River using innovative tools for forecasting and planning and enhancing communication and cooperation among water and disaster management stakeholders to adapt to weather extremes.