The ERAWATCH Country Report 2009 - Croatia provides an analysis of policy mixes to foster R&D investment in Croatia and to contribute to the ERA.

The main objective of the report is to characterise and assess the evolution of the national policy mixes in the perspective of the national goals for R&D investments, and for the contribution to the realisation of the European Research Area, as associate country. This report is building on a synthesis of information from the ERAWATCH Research Inventory and other important available information sources.

ERA plays an increasingly important role in the Croatian national research policy. It seems that the main obstacles to ERA related policies originate in the lack of recognition of its capacity and potential as a stimulus for national research policy development in Croatia. Thus, Croatian ERA efforts are primarily a result of multilateral and bilateral agreements signed and initialized from abroad, and significantly, not through the development of the national research programmes and activities. More precisely there is no initiative to foster joint approaches to research programmes, suggesting lacking aspirations towards stronger internationalization. Moreover there is low level of coordination between the research programs and other national strategies.