On Thursday, October 19, 2023, the final conference of the Croatian-Swiss Research Program 2017-2023 (CSRP) was held at the Zagreb Innovation Center (ZICER). Professor Stjepan Bogdan, the vice dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing participated at the roundtable discussion on the future and challenges of the Croatian research system.
Topics discussed during the roundtable included the reputation and relevance of Croatian research institutions at the European and international levels, the potential of Croatian researchers to engage in international consortia, the capacity of Croatian institutions to attract and retain foreign scientists, the balance between fundamental and applied research, the importance of social and human sciences versus STEM fields, and the role of the Croatian Foundation for Science in the national system.
The panel included Ms. Eveline Wandl-Vogt from the Center for Open Innovation in Science at Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft, Dr. David Matthew Smith, the director of the Ruđer Bošković Institute, and Dr. Leo Mršić, the vice dean of the University of Algebra and a member of the National Council for Higher Education, Science, and Technological Development.
This program was financed within the framework of the Swiss-Croatian Cooperation Program and supported 11 collaborative research projects involving Croatian and Swiss scientists. These projects were conducted between 2019 and 2023.