VEZILKA at the WideAcrossEU Conference 2026

The VEZILKA project took part in the conference “Towards Advanced Pathways to Synergies in European R&I,” held on 18 September 2026 in a hybrid format at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje (UKIM).

The event was organised within the Horizon Europe WIDE AcrossEU project, implemented by the University of Pardubice (coordinator), UKIM, Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University, the University of Lapland and Umeå University. It brought together representatives of academia, European and regional institutions, R&I experts and industry to discuss European R&I funding opportunities, policy synergies, capacity building and industry–academia collaboration. The programme included a plenary session and two panels, one on accessing EU funding and one on building effective industry–academia partnerships.

VEZILKA was represented by Professor Dimitar Trajanov, Project Director, who opened the “Capacity and Competence Pathways” session with the presentation “Project VEZILKA: Trustworthy AI Across Sectors for Advancing University, Research and Education.”

Prof. Trajanov began by placing North Macedonia within the wider European picture: a country that exports digital services above the EU average, yet has only a fraction of the Union’s level of digital skills and research investment. National participation in the European AI Factory network is designed to close this gap.

He then presented trustworthy AI not as a set of principles, but as an engineering discipline. AI systems should be lawful, ethical and robust, and this must be sustained through documentation, evaluation and clearly assigned human oversight across the system’s entire life cycle. He explained why this discipline becomes even more urgent as AI moves from systems that answer questions to systems that act autonomously.

VEZILKA’s participation in the conference reflects the ambition behind the project: a North Macedonia that not only uses AI but creates it, and keeps its talent building here.