Fostering industry - science collaboration in Croatia: SMEs experience from IRCRO programme

This paper explores the experience of Croatian SMEs participating in the IRCRO matching-grant scheme programme. IRCRO program has been designed to foster the development of the new product through firm’s collaboration with research organizations. IRCRO was launched by the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports in 2008 within the Science and Technology Project financed by the World Bank. As a part of the Evaluation of the Innovation Programs Financed by World Bank in Croatia project, a survey of firms involved in the IRCRO programme has been conducted in 2011. The developed questionnaire collected information on the profile of the SMEs participating in the programme, the results of their particular IRCRO project, as well as firms’ views about IRCRO. The survey analysis enabled us to evaluate the impact of concrete scheme in fostering industry-science collaboration in Croatia and to derive useful policy recommendations.