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Investing in education and research in STEM field as the key to economic development of Croatia

The article gives a subject review of recent investment to research and development (R&D) in Republic of Croatia related to other world countries, paying special attention to STEM field. It analyzes current number of the students and graduates at higher education institutions in Croatia with refer to EU and world. There is a lack of all technical professions, including ICT. Employability of the graduates in STEM field is in increasing in economically developed countries what could be the sign to decision makers in Croatia what kind of study programs should be promoted. There is one of the key-questions how to stop the brain drain of the experts in STEM field out from Croatia due to the fact that average salary in EU developed countries is even three times more. Is in that case unconditional free higher education investment to the development of other countries, indeed? Croatia stands very bad regarding the number of researchers per million inhabitants and also by investment to R&D. These data are looking still worse in its structure, where 80% of money allocated from public sector for education and R&D is spending for salaries of employees. Investments to R&D from business sector are also relatively small, in particular if they are compared to those in developed countries. This paper is trying to find out is there any correlation between defended doctoral thesis and economic development in Croatian counties, and also between study programs profile and export. It analyzes the influence of investment to R&D on the economic recovering and draw a parallel between current study programs in Croatia and its innovativeness level. There are given particularly some comments regarding the students quota to the study programs in STEM field related to others, that are approximately in the ratio 40:60. At the end of work some examples of good practice are given and steps taken so far to fix the today's situation in direction of economic recovering of Republic of Croatia.

STEM field, research and development, Croatia, economic recovering

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