THE IMPACT OF THE EU PROGRAMS IN THE WESTERN BALKANS

The aim of this study is to contribute to understanding the impact of the EU assistance on increasing institutional capacity, particularly in higher education institutions of the Western Balkans. This study highlights the hypothesis concerning the impact of EU funds in capacity building of human resources in Western Balkan countries, with particular emphasis on Kosovo, Albania, BiH, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia. An additional value added to the EU programs is university-industry cooperation which is recognized as an important factor for strengthening the research capacities, human resources, and regional cooperation between the institutions in the Western Balkans. For the Methodology, the Cronbach Alpha analysis will be proceeded to assess the accuracy of the questionnaire, followed by the research with multiple and simple linear regression. The result of the paper has shown the positive relationship between the performance of the institutions and the EU programs, therefore, the main conclusions of the paper are that EU funds positively affect the advancement of human resources in WB due to limited financial sources of the local institutions.