ASHE: New Strategy for 2010 to 2014

Ever since its establishment, the Agency for Science and Higher Education (ASHE) has actively participated in a wide range of interventions aimed at changes and reforms in the field of quality assurance in science and higher education. Its task is to implement various procedures of external quality evaluation of higher education and science to continuously educate and provide training for quality assurance experts and to counsel higher education institutions and scientific organisations in improving the quality of their activities.

ASHE has now mapped out a strategy for its activities for the years 2010 to 2014. Annual revisions of the stage of implementation of the activities connected with individual goals will serve to monitor the success of the whole strategy. Within this strategy, two general strategic objectives can be identified.

Setting the strategic objective of quality assurance and development in science and higher education, ASHE plans to achieve long-term goals related to its participation in creating policies, national guidelines and a culture of quality in science and higher education in Croatia. In relation to this, ASHE finds it particularly relevant to improve its internal quality culture and continue with the development of the National Information System for Science and Higher Education, as well as to establish a national quality assurance network for its stakeholders.

Within the strategic objective of developing its national and international recognisability and reliability, ASHE seeks to achieve the long-term goals of connecting the national quality assurance network with the international quality assurance networks in higher education, and developing and improving cooperation with similar agencies in Europe and globally.

In relation to this, it is particularly important to join the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) and the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) as soon as possible, as a part of the continuous effort to enhance the reliability of ASHE.

Improvements of EURAXESS Croatia

EURAXESS Croatia is the one-stop-shop to search job vacancies and fellowship opportunities in over 30 European countries. In addition, an extensive database of CVs of research talents from around the world is available for employers to find the right candidate. This constantly evolving research career website has now improved even further.

A brand new section on fellowship programmes offers a wide variety of fellowship opportunities in fields ranging from chemistry and neurosciences to ethics in health sciences. Also, the number of national EURAXESS websites has increased. To date, there are 29 national portals providing specific information on the country’s research landscape and further targeted job vacancies. A tutorial video on how to make the most of EURAXESS Jobs as an employer is now available in English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese. It provides details on how to publish job vacancies and fellowship opportunities.

Furthermore, the first-ever edition of the EURAXESS Magazine provides news on EURAXESS and success stories from around the world. The functionalities for the job vacancies and fellowships search pages have also improved. The improvements include a search assisting functionality and the newly added QR code allowing you to link individual job or fellowship opportunities to your smartphone for immediate processing.

New REGPOT Projects Have Been Signed

This summer, two REGPOT Projects from Croatia have been signed.

The first one is the “TransMedRi” project awarded in the framework of the EU-FP7-REGPOT programme, which aims to strengthen the research potential of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Rijeka for transnational research in biomedicine, particularly in the fields of infectious diseases and cancer.The project objectives include a closer cooperation between several basic and clinical research groups, the recruitment of several experienced researchers from abroad, the establishment of new laboratories and a bio-bank, the training of young researchers in foreign laboratories, the organisation of several courses and the procurement of research equipment. The project will be supported by the EU Commission with € 1,853,941 for 36 months.

The second project is Particle Detectors. This project aims to improve the development of detector systems and testing capabilities of the nuclear and particle physics laboratories of the Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI), in order to satisfy the demands of these modern experiments. Novel detectors and instrumentation will be acquired. Partnerships with seven European institutions that possess exceptional know-how will be strengthened, and experienced researchers exchanged with them. Thematic workshops will be organised. Qualified scientists that will enhance the research capacity will be hired and integrated at the facility. The realisation of this project will have a synergetic effect, resulting in a high- quality detector system development facility, as well as in an enhanced performance of large European physics experiments. The upgraded facility will be unique in Croatia with potential benefits for the broader scientific community including national universities and the industry. The budget of the project amounts to € 1,319,538.