District heating system could contribute to more efficient heat generation through cogeneration power plants or waste heat utilization facilities and to increase the share of renewable energy sources in total energy consumption. Although district heating systems are present in a vast number of larger urban areas in Eastern European they are still facing some problems such as old and inefficient technology, lack of related national regulations, high emissions, high heat losses and high operating costs. Due to these conditions the implementation of high efficiency and renewable energy based systems in existing or new district heating systems has to be carefully analysed and planned. This work presents current status of district heating sector and analyses the potential of high efficient and renewable based systems to reduce heat production costs in Eastern European communities. 

Recent developments in oil and gas industry technology, namely the tandem implementation of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, have led to a boom in the exploitation of shale gas and oil reserves in the USA.  Production in the Eagle Ford Shale of central Texas has risen from 50,000 barrels per day in 2007 to 1.2 million barrels per day in 2014.  This increase in production has not been experienced in Mexico which has an estimated 3 billion barrels of oil and 4.2 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves in the Eagle Ford formation as well. In December 2013, an Amendment to the Mexican Constitution allowing foreign investment in the country’s oil and gas industry was approved.  This historic legislation has opened a window for the first significant foreign investment in the oil and gas sector since it was nationalized in Mexico in 1938.  The new challenges to this vision will not only include the steps the government takes to improve border security and protect foreign capital investment, but also the expansion of the skilled engineering and technology workforce in the country.  President Peña Nieto’s new plan is for the long established Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) to, in effect, cease to be a governmental agency and function more like a for-profit private venture.  However, the company is overstaffed with unskilled workers whose jobs are guaranteed for life and understaffed with engineers and skilled labor, according to Marcelo Mereles, a former Pemex Director.  Developing and training this new skilled workforce of engineers and technologists for the planned Mexican oil and gas industry expansion will need resource commitments from policymakers and educators at all levels.  What are the next steps?

In recent years the number of different research and education oriented scholarships and grants such as Erasmus or Marie-Curie program is rising, together with scholarships that offer working experience. Due to lack of highly skilled working force, a big part of these researches and scholarships are offered and held on Universities located in developed European countries or United States of America. The scholarship programmes are a great opportunity for students, researchers and scientists to gain valuable experience from different and highly rated Universities from different countries. The experience could be then further used to enhance competitiveness of home country economy through new ideas, knowledge exchange and networking. However, due to current situation in South East European Countries these scholarships and grants are enhancing brain drain process because a lot of scholarship and grant holders decide to stay in the hosting county after the scholarship or grant has ended. In this light, the experience from two different scholarship programmes dedicated to South East European Countries will be presented. Some positive and negative aspects of the programmes related to sustainable development of South East European Countries will be analysed and discussed.

Scientific diasporas are a potential capital and intellectual source for the home countries of their origin. The scientific diasporas can play an important role to knowledge circulation and sustainable development to their home countries through intellectual interchange of specialised knowledge, exchange of scientific, policy and technological information, joint research projects, research training and promotion of their home country to the wider scientific community. However, the capacity of the scientific diasporas is often underutilised when creating the vision and policies for sustainable development of the home countries, mainly due to the lack of organised networks of the skilled expatriates. This panel will discuss the options to bridge the current gaps that are needed to harness the full potential for utilisation of the intellectual capital that the scientific diasporas can bring to their home countries to contribute to the economic, environmental and social development.

The need for permanent contact between the Faculties and the graduated and former students is evident, especially nowadays due to the overall globalization. There is a mutual interest in the continuation of the correspondence and collaboration between the certain Departments, or more specifically, professors and their former students. The nature of the noble educational profession inevitably includes not just teaching of the professional skills, but also a professor-student pedagogic connection that is developing and is gaining new quality with time. Namely, every ethically driven professor is naturally interested in the professional development of its student and vice versa the students are honored to keep in touch with their professors and to share their success with the one who has encouraged the development of their skills and helped gaining of their knowledge through the whole complex process of „producing“ professionals. The need of organizing an alumni association, alumni corporate association, carrier centers or other kinds of social networks or organizations that has similar background was discovered also here, in the Republic of Macedonia, among the teaching staff and the students of the Technical campus of the University of Ss. „Cyril and Methodius“ in Skopje. Several Faculties among which are the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy and the Faculty for Mechanical Engineering in Skopje have this kind of organizations. The first and the most important purpose of the Alumni association of the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy in Skopje is connecting the engineers professionally and socially, engineers-students, engineers-professors and engineers former students as well as the engineers working or studying abroad. 

Migration of skilled workers is generally beneficial for income per capita as well as poverty reduction in the home countries as it raises remittances, labour productivity, trade and foreign direct investment as well as provides incentives for human capital accumulation. Even though benefits from migration are likely to offset negative effects from brain drain it is much less clear in the academic development literature if migration programs can deliver better effects on home developing countries if designed as temporary or permanent. Unfortunately quantifications of the overall effects of different migration schemes on home countries are scant. Recent findings suggest that temporary migration programs yield better outcomes than permanent migration due to the productivity gains induced in the home countries by returning migrants.