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The unfortunate state of early-career scientist funding in Croatia

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Photo source: Markus Spiske (@markusspiske) | Unsplash

Over the last couple of weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about scientific research funding in the US. There are many changes, and it remains to be seen what will come out of it in the end. If some of the new policies stick around for a longer time, I have no doubt they will inspire discussions and considerations in the rest of the world, including Europe, as many of them in the US tend to do.

While science funding in the US is an important and interesting topic, I would like to say a couple of words regarding science funding that hits closer to home, namely in Croatia. Earlier this week, the Croatian Science Foundation (HrZZ) closed the project call for Installation Research Projects UIP-2025-02. This was the first project call of this type after 5 years, which is possibly the reason why the usual range of eligible scientists with a maximum of 7 years after obtaining the PhD degree was extended to a maximum of 10 years after it. The call still requires a minimum of 2 years of experience after the degree.

Number of scientists in Croatia

According to the OBR-2024-4-1 report by Croatian Bureau of Statistics, the number of teachers and teaching associates working in higher education in Croatia in the academic year 2023/2024 was 18 647. It is surprisingly hard to deduce the exact number of scientists that could apply for UIP-2025-02 from the breakdown of this number by any of the categories provided, but it can be estimated. When counting only scientists employed based on an employment contract, there are:

  • 661 postdocs,
  • 2 102 assistant professors, and
  • 2 336 associate professors.

Given the range of 2--10 years after the PhD, roughly half of the postdocs, almost all assistant professors, and even some associate professors could be eligible to apply. However, let's not overestimate this number and take that, out of those 5 099 scientists, there are only 2 000 potential applicants.

Estimating the percentage of funded early-career scientists in Croatia

The Croatian Science Foundation has allocated 18 million EUR to fund early-career scientists via UIP-2025-02, with individual project funding ranging from 125 000 to 300 000 EUR. While this might seem like a lot of money per project at first glance, note that this funding is given for five years, so it's 25 000 to 60 000 per year (and that includes the salary for a postdoc).

But let's the consideration of the per-project amounts aside for now and instead analyze the approximate percentage of 2 000 applicants that can secure funding.

Option 1: minimal funding per project, maximal number of projects

  • Number of projects funded: \(18 000 000\text{ EUR} \div 125 000\text{ EUR/project}\) = 144 projects.
  • Percentage of scientists funded: \((144 \div 2 000) \times 100\%\) = 7.2%.

Option 2: maximal funding per project, minimal number of projects

  • Number of projects funded: \(18 000 000\text{ EUR} \div 300 000\text{ EUR/project}\) = 60 projects.
  • Percentage of scientists funded: \((60 \div 2 000) \times 100\%\) = 3%.

The percentage of applicants that can secure funding will therefore range from 3% to 7.2%, depending on the size of the grants awarded.

Comparisons to other calls

To put that into perspective, compare it to approximately 30% funding rate for NIH Early Stage Investigators. We don't even have to go across the Atlantic; Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA) scholarships, considered very prestigious, have 10--15% success rate (source: 14.3% for 2020, 13.8% for 2021).

Final remarks and conclusions

Of course, not everybody eligible will try to apply for HrZZ UIP, so it is hard to say that there is a single-digit percent application success rate. However, one should keep in mind that there is no other source of funding for starting a research group available on a more or less recurring basis. Unluckily, due to the low total allocated amount of money, this source of funding will never provide such an opportunity for the vast majority of early-career scientists in Croatia.

This phenomenon has been repeatedly observed by my colleagues in other fields and other universities. Last year, Nina Kamčev, a very successful and award-winning young mathematician from University of Zagreb Faculty of Science, said:

First, scientists in the West can devote much more time to research because they have strong administrative support and structure. I will illustrate with two examples. At 'Western' universities, project offices provide maximum support to researchers in writing European projects and take over most of the administrative work, such as writing the budget, which would greatly facilitate my work next month and make my project proposal more competitive. At the national level, there is usually a regular annual cycle of calls for proposals for national research projects, which allows scientists to plan their careers and have a constant source of funding for research. On the other hand, the Croatian Science Foundation (not necessarily under its responsibility) announces calls sporadically every 2-3 years depending on the availability of funds, said Kamčev.

-- Ramona Ščuric (Srednja.hr), translation and emphasis mine

It is unfortunately not every two to three years anymore, but actually double that time. When the funding is so sparse, the Croatian academic community risks losing talented individuals to other professions or countries where their work might be better supported. This phenomenon, known as the brain drain, poses a significant threat to the country's scientific and economic progress. Moreover, when good proposals are left unfunded, or not even submitted due to a low chance of success, the country misses out on innovations that could improve lives and drive development in other areas.

Full disclosure

I formerly worked as a senior lecturer and an assistant professor at the University of Rijeka (UniRi), where I tried to apply for funding from the Croatian Science Foundation (HrZZ) twice:

Both project proposals were unsuccessful. (Given that I no longer work at UniRi, it should be obvious that these failures had consequences, but that is a topic for another blog post.) During the time that I was applying, there was no call for early-career researchers (UIP) from HrZZ, and I was ineligible for the two subsequent the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NPOO) calls: NPOO.C3.2.R2-I1.06 and NPOO.C3.2.R3-I1.04.

Note that I am not trying to claim it should have been otherwise, and, regardless of the quality of my submissions, I believe the points made above still stand on their merit.