Last year UNICO officially opened its branch in Zagreb, you are the face of it. Even in that short time, some differences in the two ecosystems are surely evident...
I would say that Croatia is still a few years behind the Czech Republic in technology transfer. The ecosystem lacks overall maturity and is still beginning to connect itself, but at the same time it is growing enormously fast. There's a big push to mobilize our science-base towards industry applications, but these things don't happen overnight.
It is also important to say at the outset that Croatia is heavily dependent on services, specifically tourism and, in the tech context, SaaS. Moreover, Croatia does not have such a well-developed domestic industrial base when compared to Czechia. A lot of the differences come from that.
In terms of data, it appears that government expenditure on research and development (GERD) in HR has increased due to funding from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and its follow-on European Structural Investment Fund (ESIF), but there is a lack of long-term national funding and uncertainty how the policy mix will look like after 2027.
Croatia has approximately 3.5 times fewer researchers than the Czech Republic, although its population is only 2.8 times smaller. This suggests that scientific careers in Croatia are still not attractive enough. An interesting comparison is the involvement of both countries in the Horizon Europe programme, where HR rarely acts as the principal investigator of projects. This may reflect insufficient application capacity or the absence of excellent applied research projects but knowing Croatian science I'd emphasize the former. This is thankfully likely to change as the EU puts more focus on facilities for widening countries like Croatia.
What is the situation in terms of funding for science and research?
Croatian innovators are largely dependent on grants and seven-year European budgets, which creates uncertainty and inefficiency. From what I have seen, funding in the Czech Republic is more decentralised and closer to research, and there is also private funding, which is almost completely absent in Croatia. For instance, in Czechia, research organizations hold the Proof-of-Concept program budget and can make decisions much closer to the science. In Croatia I see a greater emphasis on transparency, which, however, doesn't quite go hand in hand with the rapidly changing needs of cutting-edge research.
If you had to name three common ecosystem ills, what would they be?
First, my impression is that public procurement is viewed with distrust in both countries, which hinders collaborative research. Second, together with my Czech colleagues, we complain about the lack of continuity of policies and strategies after each change of government. We have had some continuity in Croatia, but this too has not always meant a consistent policy mix. And finally, I also sense an information asymmetry between academia and industry, which persists despite programs to bridge it. For this we need time, ambition, and more bottom-up ecosystem support through entities like UNICO.
And on a lighter note, what good things are happening in Croatia and where you see our UNICO expertise being used?
I see progress in building capacities for technology transfer and growing interest from private investors in university spin-off technologies. With new players like Vesna Deep Tech funding research-driven innovation or venture funds like AYMO coming to market, there seems to be more room to start something new in Croatia. At the same time, the government and technology transfer entities are really proactive in their aspirations to mobilize more research commercialization.
In this context it is key for actors like UNICO to bridge all the many interests and help researchers make the best decisions to build their spin-offs and start-ups into successful businesses. We've actively done this for almost ten years in Czechia and now is the perfect time to help Croatia close that gap!
And the most important question at the end: Prague or Zagreb?
At UNICO we're lucky in that we will never have to choose between the two...but Zagreb, because we've built many a success story in Prague, and in Zagreb we have yet more work to be done!
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