Human Resource and Research Capacity Development as a Prerequisite of Successful Inclusion of the Republic of Croatia into the European Union

Abstract

In the last 10 to 15 years, a significant shift has occurred in the understanding of the connection between economic growth and development, human resource development, research, innovations and technology. Unambiguous explanations of technological progress or human resource development have been abandoned. It is considered that economic growth and prosperity are founded on a combination of a well-functioning education system and on development level of research capacity which determines the development of innovations and technology. In other words, educated employees, i.e. human resources, become the moving force behind the creation of knowledge, which enables an increasing number of innovations, which lead to technological changes, which significantly expedite economic growth. It is pointed out that former research have shown that the very companies rarely encourage innovations, and that institutional framework in which companies, universities, research institutes and other organisations operate has a key role. The objectives of this paper are the following: 1. To establish whether, and to what extent, the Republic of Croatia lags behind the neighbouring countries in key components of development; 2. To point out the significance of education, educational policy and science and research policy, as well as technology and technological policy in the process of increasing competitiveness and reaching the average development level of the EU countries. The position of the Republic of Croatia in the environment of the European Union regarding human resource development, research capacity, innovations and technology will be determined in this paper by four groups of combined indices. Croatia will especially be compared with countries which become members the European Union after May 1, 2004: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Malta. Subjects of analysis are: 1) Human resource development measured by the human development index as a combined index consisting of three indicators: life span and the population's state of health (measured by the expected life span and purchasing power of the population), and the level of education of the population (measured by the adult literacy rate), and by a combined indicator of the share of respective population groups in primary, secondary and tertiary education; 2) Research capacity as a combined index of investments in research and development, investments in tertiary education and the number of scientific publications per million inhabitants; 3) Efficacy of technology and innovations as a combined index of the number of patents, licences and stamps; 4) The ability to absorb knowledge and technology as a ombined index of labour force productivity and the achieved development level. The research will be conducted by the bird's-eye view method.