HRZZ Croatian Science Foundation: Overview

HRZZ — the Hrvatska zaklada za znanost, known in English as the Croatian Science Foundation — is Croatia’s national body for funding competitive scientific research. If you are a research administrator working with Croatian collaborators, or a Croatia-based researcher planning a proposal, this guide covers what HRZZ is, its main national and international funding programmes, and how researchers outside Croatia can partner into HRZZ-funded projects.

What HRZZ is

HRZZ was established by the Croatian Parliament on 21 December 2001 (Official Gazette No. 117/2001), originally under the name National Foundation for Science, Higher Education and Technological Development; it adopted its current name, the Croatian Science Foundation, in 2009. Since 1 January 2022, HRZZ has operated as a budget user under Croatia’s Ministry of Science and Education, governed by the Budget Act and the State Budget Execution Act. A dedicated Act on the Croatian Science Foundation (Official Gazette 57/2022), passed in May 2022, set out its current governing bodies: the Board, the Director, and a Complaints Committee.

HRZZ describes its own role as the central body responsible for providing financial support to scientific research through an independent system of calls, evaluation, selection, and funding of the best scientific projects and researchers. It has funded national research projects since 2013 (a function previously held directly by the Ministry) and has supported young researchers’ career development since 2014. All HRZZ funding is awarded solely through public calls, with terms and conditions set by the Board — there is no direct, off-call funding mechanism.

Strategic goals

HRZZ frames its work around a small number of recurring strategic objectives:

Securing stable, competitive funding for scientific research in Croatia
Connecting researchers across public research institutions and the economic (industry) sector
Developing early-career researchers at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels
Building collaboration programmes with the Croatian scientific diaspora
Integrating Croatian science more fully into the European Research Area

These goals map onto specific programme families, described below, rather than remaining abstract policy statements — each has a corresponding call type.

Main national funding programmes

HRZZ’s core national portfolio is organized around a small set of recurring acronyms that a research administrator working with Croatian partners will encounter repeatedly:

IP (Research Projects) — the standard investigator-initiated research project mechanism, open across disciplines through competitive, discipline-organized calls.
UIP (Installation Research Projects) — targeted at researchers establishing an independent research group in Croatia, typically aimed at early- to mid-career investigators returning to or newly establishing a career in the Croatian system.
PKP (Croatian science) — part of HRZZ’s national research programme family; specifics vary by call, so check the current call text on hrzz.hr rather than assuming a fixed structure across years.
DOK (Doctoral researcher career development) — funds doctoral-student positions attached to an HRZZ-funded project, combining project research with formal doctoral training.
POSTDOK (Postdoctoral researcher career development) — the postdoctoral equivalent, supporting early-career researchers who have completed a doctorate to build an independent research trajectory within an active project.

Because HRZZ funds project-attached doctoral and postdoctoral positions (DOK/POSTDOK) rather than only standalone fellowships, a project’s IP or UIP award and its associated career-development positions are usually administered as a linked package, not as separate competitions a research team applies to independently.

International cooperation and multinational mechanisms

A substantial share of HRZZ’s programme portfolio exists specifically to fund cross-border collaboration, which is where most non-Croatian researchers and institutions will encounter HRZZ directly.

Weave

HRZZ participates in Weave, the cross-European initiative that lets researchers in up to three participating countries submit a single joint proposal, reviewed once by a single lead agency, rather than requiring separate national applications. HRZZ runs bilateral Weave-based calls with several partner agencies, including:

Slovenia (Slovenian–Croatian Bilateral Projects, with the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency)
Switzerland (Swiss–Croatian Bilateral Projects, with the Swiss National Science Foundation)
Czech Republic (Czech–Croatian Bilateral Projects, with the Czech Science Foundation, GAČR)
Germany (German–Croatian Bilateral Projects, with the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG)

Weave is the same mechanism CASRAI covers in its DFG overview and GAČR overview guides — a Croatian-based principal investigator and a partner in one of these countries submit and are reviewed jointly, with each national agency funding its own side of the project once the joint proposal is approved.

Other multinational mechanisms

Multilateral Academic Projects (MAPS) — funded through the Second Swiss Contribution, supporting joint projects between a Switzerland-based applicant and additional applicants across two to five EU-13 countries, including Croatia.
ERA-NET participation — HRZZ funds Croatian teams competing in multi-country ERA-NET calls such as QuantERA (quantum technologies) and BlueBio (blue bioeconomy), each coordinating dozens of national funding organizations across Europe under a shared call.
CHANSE — a social sciences and humanities collaborative research network HRZZ participates in.
Trans-Atlantic Platform (T-AP) — available to Croatian social sciences and humanities researchers for transatlantic collaborative calls.

Other HRZZ programmes

STRUNA — funds the development and standardization of Croatian-language professional and scientific terminology, an infrastructure programme distinct from the research-funding mechanisms above.
PARTNER — funds collaboration between academic researchers and the economic (industry) sector, bridging HRZZ-funded research and commercial application.
UKF (Unity Through Knowledge Fund) — supports knowledge transfer and collaboration involving the Croatian scientific diaspora, connecting Croatian researchers abroad with institutions in Croatia.

How non-Croatian researchers can access HRZZ funding

HRZZ does not run a general open grant that a researcher based outside Croatia can apply to independently. Access runs through one of the collaborative mechanisms above: a Weave bilateral call with a Croatian co-applicant, an ERA-NET consortium that includes a Croatian partner, MAPS (for Swiss and EU-13 partners), or another multinational programme HRZZ participates in for a given call cycle. In every case, the Croatian side of the project is administered and funded by HRZZ under Croatian rules, while the partner country’s funding agency administers and funds its own side under its own rules — the two national budgets are never pooled into a single grant. Researchers seeking a Croatian partner or clarification on a specific call should contact HRZZ’s international cooperation team directly ([email protected]) rather than assuming eligibility from a call’s general description.

Application process

All HRZZ funding is awarded through public calls published on hrzz.hr, with eligibility, deadlines, and evaluation criteria set out in each call’s own documentation and Board-approved terms. Applications are submitted through HRZZ’s electronic project proposal submission system rather than by post or email. Because call terms — eligibility windows, budget ceilings, required forms — are set per call rather than fixed permanently across years, a research administrator should always work from the specific call text for the programme and year in question rather than from a prior year’s requirements.

How HRZZ compares to other national funders

HRZZ’s structure — a single national funding council covering all disciplines through open, discipline-organized competitions, funded from the state budget rather than as a private foundation — follows the same general pattern as most European national funding bodies research administrators handle multinational projects with, including DFG in Germany, GAČR in the Czech Republic, and the Swiss National Science Foundation. What distinguishes HRZZ’s international profile is the breadth of its bilateral Weave partnerships and its role coordinating Croatian participation in EU-wide multinational calls (ERA-NET, MAPS, CHANSE) rather than only running its own domestic competitions. For EU-level funding available to Croatian researchers alongside HRZZ’s own national calls, see CASRAI’s Horizon Europe overview.

Frequently asked questions

Is HRZZ the same as the Croatian Science Foundation?

Yes. HRZZ is the acronym for Hrvatska zaklada za znanost, which translates to Croatian Science Foundation — the organization’s official English name. The two names refer to the same body; neither is a translation error or a separate entity.

What does HRZZ fund?

HRZZ funds competitive research projects across all academic disciplines through its IP (Research Projects) and UIP (Installation Research Projects) mechanisms, doctoral and postdoctoral career-development positions attached to funded projects (DOK/POSTDOK), industry-academia collaboration (PARTNER), Croatian-language scientific terminology development (STRUNA), and diaspora knowledge-transfer collaboration (UKF), alongside a substantial international-cooperation portfolio.

Can a researcher outside Croatia apply directly to HRZZ?

Generally no. Non-Croatian researchers participate in HRZZ-funded work through joint mechanisms — a Weave bilateral call with a Croatian co-applicant, an ERA-NET or MAPS consortium including a Croatian partner — where each country’s funder administers and pays its own side of the project. A standalone, direct-to-HRZZ application from a researcher with no Croatian institutional affiliation is not the normal pathway.

What is the difference between IP and UIP?

IP (Research Projects) is HRZZ’s standard, open, discipline-organized project competition. UIP (Installation Research Projects) is specifically for researchers establishing an independent research group in Croatia, aimed at early- to mid-career investigators building a new group rather than an already-established research team applying for further project funding.

Which countries does HRZZ run Weave bilateral calls with?

As of this writing, HRZZ’s Weave bilateral programmes include Slovenia, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Germany, each run jointly with that country’s national funding agency (the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency, the Swiss National Science Foundation, GAČR, and DFG respectively). Check hrzz.hr directly for the current list, since bilateral partnerships and open call cycles change over time.