Results of a STAREBEI research grant on “Investment for Growth and Development in the Western Balkans: The case of the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF)” will be presented during two online lectures by the EIB tutor at Sapienza University on 20 and 21 May.

The initial research was carried out in 2013 by Anastasia Ri, from Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis – Department of Development Economics, Monetary Economics, Financial Economics, working under the joint supervision of Professor Claude Berthomieu and Massimo Cingolani (EIB).

Following this, the researcher continued working on the same topic leading to various published papers and a book (“Investment for growth and development in the Western Balkans”, CEMAFI Publisher) distributed at the Western Balkans Summit in Trieste in 2017.

The work was concluded by a presentation at the European Commission Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR).

STAREBEI (STAges de REcherche BEI-EIB research internships) is a programme that provides grants to universities in order to finance junior researchers carrying out research projects proposed by the EIB Group (EIB and EIF) under the joint supervision of a university tutor and an EIB co-tutor.To date, 56 young researchers from 37 universities in 12 European countries have benefited from the STAREBEI programme.