The decentralized cooperation and the role of Universities in Local Systems. The case of SVILOPIM project.

In recent years the increasing diffusion of projects managed by Decentralized Cooperation in which the Universities play a central role, as education and research centres, moves accordingly with the improving relevance of networking approach in project management involving a net composed by many entities as Self Local Governments, Universities, Communities and Local Agencies (Dragana 2007). On this purpose the paper will consider the case of SVILOPIM Project, carried out by a team of italian Universities, with the purpose of enhancing the entrepreneurship, mostly SMEs, for the Local Systems development in Albania, Bosnia H. and Serbia. In particular in Skhodra area the main partner of the project was Luigj Gurakuqi University - Faculty of Economics. In this project the main challenge was to face the limited efficacy achieved till now by international projects in promoting entrepreneurship in transition countries, particularly if we consider the financial resources and facilities used to this purpose. SVILOPIM main mission, as the project concerns innovative initiatives, was to involve the stakeholders interested to local system development, together with the Universities that are going to play a relevant role, as education and research centres. For the local system growth and competitiveness, in a global perspective, the knowledge management had to be improved together with the capabilities of local entities to act as a system. In this perspective the paper aims to analyze the role and contribution of Universities underlining the use of advanced technologies in distance and learning process in order to create entrepreneurial skills and in new enterprises starting up.