DI-MARC

Digital Marketing Capacity Building — Empowering Persons with Physical Disabilities for Remote Work (DI-MARC)

The international consortium with the Institute of Economic Sciences from Belgrade as the project manager, started on October 1, 2023 with the realization of an inclusive scientific project “Empowering people with physical disabilities to work remotely through the improvement of digital marketing competencies” (eng. ”Digital Marketing Capacity Building - Empowering Persons with Physical Disabilities for Remote Work“shorter UNMARKED).

UNMARKEDthe project was approved within the highly competitive call ESF-2022-SOC-INNOV of the European Social Fund Plus (ESF), and scored by the reviewers with 96/100 points, which is one of the highest scores that social science projects from Serbia received on the programs funded by the European Commission. The project implementation period is 24 months (October 1, 2023 — September 30, 2025).

DI-MARC project implemented Department of Digital Economy Institute of Economic Sciencesin cooperation with nine institutions from Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro, within the Employment and Social Innovation Component of the European Social Fund Plus, as the main EU programme in the field of labour, employment and social policy, which is also open to EU candidate countries.

Partners involved in the implementation of the project:

1. Institute of Economic Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia — project manager
2. Regional Agency for Development and European Integration, Belgrade, Serbia
3. Association of Persons with Disabilities Belgrade, Serbia
4. Jaglac - Association of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities, Orahovica, Croatia
5. Center for Entrepreneurship, Osijek, Croatia
6. Entrepreneurial and Development Center of the Municipality of Erdut, Croatia
7. Municipality of Erdut, Croatia
8. MAMM, Niksic, Montenegro
9. Association of Youth with Disabilities of Montenegro, Podgorica, Montenegro
10. Municipality of Kotor, Montenegro.

The DI-MARC project is focused on the implementation of digital technologies in the function of promoting inclusion, that is, on improving the digital marketing competencies of people with physical disabilities for remote work. Remote work creates a remarkable potential for the employment of people with physical disabilities, however the key challenges they face are partial or complete exclusion from the labour market and the lack of digital competencies required for employment, both in the traditional job market and on digital platforms for remote work (Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr). In this regard, the goal of the DI-MARC project is to improve the competencies of people with disabilities, which is achieved by (1) assessing the level of their existing skills and competencies and (2) creating and implementing training programs aimed at building and improving the competencies required for work. The digital marketing segment was selected as the primary one for research because teleworking platforms have significantly increased the demand for jobs in this field, and employment opportunities for people with physical disabilities are the highest in the field of digital marketing.

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