Regional project "Mind the Gap: Improving the policy impact of OSF Alumni Network in the Western Balkans" began with a meeting of academic advisers from the Western Balkan educational centers. The meeting was held within the framework of the regional conference "Move.Link.Engage: New models of Governance in the Western Balkans".

The Belgrade Open School recognized the great potential of the OSF alumni network as an important source of knowledge and expertise and an important factor in providing qualitative contributions to the challenges of public policies in the countries of the Western Balkans. The project aims to support the development of the Western Balkan region through data-based policies and regional cooperation relying on the ongoing Berlin process.

Representatives of advisory educational centers from Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina took part in the kick-off meeting on Friday, December 9, 2016. The main topic of the meeting was regional cooperation within OSF Alumni project, as well as the possibility of strengthening cooperation between the centers in the above-mentioned countries.

The meeting was held on the margins of the two-day Move.Link.Engage conference, which was focused on the topics of new governance models in the Western Balkan region. This regional conference, which was held for the second time, brought together representatives of civil society from countries in the region who sent a clear message that they want to take responsibility and are actively working to create preconditions for establishing new governance models in the region.

The project "Mind the Gap: Improving the policy impact of OSF Alumni Network in the Western Balkans" lasts from November 2016 to the end of August 2017. During the project implementation, a regional conference of the OSF alumni in May 2017 will be held. This project is a continuation of the initiative to strengthen the impact of the OSF alumni network in the creation of policies of the Western Balkans launched in 2015.