Institute would join forces with international partners and transform into a university.
Croatia’s largest and probably best scientific institution – the Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb – could be transformed in the next few years into an elite university with doctoral studies, and would then gradually, depending on the cooperation with the existing faculties which are now components of the University of Zagreb, also introduce undergraduate and graduate degrees, reports Večernji List on November 1, 2016.
The news has been confirmed by Institute director Tome Antičić. “This is one of a few initiatives in the scientific community which can truly create a prosperous future for Croatia. Since it is not realistically possible to significantly transform the existing big universities, the government must, if it wants to provide the basis for technological and scientific development of the country, create a new university through an institution which has already proven its excellence, which is internationally relevant and has a well-developed cooperation with the real economy sector”, said Antičić. “The Ruđer Bošković Institute, in contrast to the general situation in the academic community, has a critical mass of scientists who support structural changes based on excellence, international competitiveness and cooperation with the industry.”
“We have already implemented many changes in the last three years and have established a system that is significantly different from the standard model present in the Croatian academic community”, added Antičić.
He therefore thinks that the Institute is an ideal institution to launch a new doctoral research university which would be joined by several other institutes and later even by faculties from the STEM area of research. According to Antičić, several institutes have shown interest in that possibility. “The creation of a university requires partners, and we are already negotiating with two exceptional institutions – the strongest technical university in Germany Technische Universitat in Munich (TUM) and the top ranked university in continental Europe, the Swiss ETH Zurich”, said Antičić.
“The new university would be the highest-ranking Croatian university in the global academic rankings and, more importantly, would raise international reputation of Croatia, which would attract top scientists from abroad as well”, concluded Antičić.
He said that the Ruđer Bošković Institute could become “Croatia’s MIT”, alluding to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is considered by many to be the best research university in the world.
