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A critical look at Croatian science and higher education by a veteran

I have been asked by the Editor-in-Chief of this journal (Periodicum biologorum) to comment the article "SCcience and higher education in Croatia at the verge of entering the EU", by Ž. Jovanović and S. Zelenika, appearing in this issue of the journal. Since I have had some historical ties with the journal, I felt obliged to accept the request and respond positively. The other reason for responding positively is my long-lasting involvement in Croatian science, and my unsuccessful attempts to introduce in the system the international standards (thus I’m a veteran!). I have to start with a general remark. I will have to accept the statistical data as they are presented.The problemis that quite often the actual numberswere and stillmay be questionable, and I amfar fromblaming the authors for this. The numbers were questionable not because of the mathematical skills of our statisticians but because the concepts behind the numbers were often questionable. Letme use one example tomake myself clear. Having followed the data on science in Croatia for several decades, I have seen such variability for the same statistical datawithout any rational reason. One of the examples being the number of scientists in Croatia (I will skip the fact that the usual terminology of "scientists and engineers" was never accepted and practiced in Croatia). The number of scientists in Croatia, according to the official figures varied between 7000 and 13000. At the same time, the search of the authors with Croatian addresses in relevant international data bases never provided more that 2000 registered names. As I have stated above, it is not the mistake of the two authors whose article I amcommenting, but this caveat should be kept inmindwhen commenting on some of the figures.

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