Rudjer Boskovic Institute; International CooperationInstitut Rudjer Bošković; međunarodna suradnj

M. Sopta

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International Cooperation at the Rudjer Boskovic InstituteM. SoptaThe Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Bijenièka 54, ZagrebSince its inception in 1950, the Rudjer Boskovic Institute (RBI) hasa rich and varied tradition of scientific cooperation with scientistsand institutions throughout the world. Many of these ties were for-ged at the level of individual scientists doing part of their doctoralor post-doctoral training in leading institutions around the world,most notably in Germany, Austria, France, Slovenia, United Sta-tes, Canada and Great Britain.In addition, the Institute has hadnumerous scientists visit our cam-pus and hold talks on cutting edgeresearch which served to enhan-ce and enrich the scientific expe-rience for both students and inve-stigators. Over the years a num-ber of Nobel laureates havevisited the Institute including Li-nus Pauling, Jean-Marie Lehn,Vladimir Prelog, Werner Heisen-berg, Harry Kroto and RoaldHoffman. More recently the Pre-sident of the Humboldt Founda-tion, Prof. Helmut Schwartz wasalso a guest at the Institute.In 2006 the Office for Internatio-nal Projects was created withinthe administration of the Institute.The mission of the office is to pro-vide quality, professional supportservices to RBI scientists in theirpreparation of proposals for inter-national grants. This support in-cludes searches for grant opportu-nities both domestic and interna-tional and relaying such preparinggrant applications, administrativefinancial management and re-porting on awarded grants as wellas organization of educationaland information workshops forthe RBI community. Institutescientists have over the yearsbeen highly successful in obtaining international grants. In the pe-riod from 2005–2010, a total of 254 projects in the amount of 9827 180 Euros were awarded to RBI scientists. These grants inclu-de projects funded by the following agencies; UKF, NZZ/ESF,NATO, FP5–7 (EU), INTERREG and the IAEA.Bilateral cooperation agreements between the Croatian Ministryof Science and countries such as Slovenia, Austria, Germany andFrance have provided financial means by which successful colla-borations were initiated. Over the years a number of Institutescientists have gone abroad as Humboldt Fellows or Fulbright Fel-lows to train and foster closer scientific ties with Germany and theUnited States respectively.While a comprehensive survey of international cooperation acrossthe Institute’s many departments is beyond the scope of this artic-le, a brief snapshot of activities will serve to illustrate the manyaspects of international cooperation within the Institute.The Department of Experimental Physics has a long tradition of in-ternational collaborations. Since the latter half of the 20th centuryexperiments in experimental phy-sics have largely been interna-tional collaborations with manycountries participating in experi-ments at the forefront of the field.Scientists in the Department ofExperimental Physics at the Ru-djer Boskovic Institute have fullyparticipated in this trend and con-tributed greatly to the work of in-ternational teams in physics.Scientists in the Department ofExperimental Physics have beenthe recipients of at least four EUgrants including three REGPOTgrants. Many of their internationalcollaborations involve projectsconducted at the CERN facilitiesin Switzerland. Among these are collaborations in the ALICE expe-riment, the CAST experiments and the OPERA collaboration.Another major source of international collaborations in this de-partment are projects funded by the International Atomic EnergyAgency (IAEA). Bilateral projects with Hungary, Serbia and Italy aswell as projects funded through the Unity through KnowledgeFund (UKF) round up the overall international activities in the De-partment of Experimental Physics.The Center for Informatics and Computer Science has played a pi-votal role not only in developing and maintaining the informaticsinfrastructure of the Institute but also in the development of pan-European informatics. Since 2003 the Center has received fiveEU-FP6 grants and three EU-FP7 grants in the area of e-Sciencetechnologies in collaborations involving 128 European institu-tions. These projects have as their goal the development of the Eu-ropean Research Area through establishment of informatics infra-structure within the European Research Infrastructure Consortium(ERIC). As a result of these collaborations the Centre has helpedestablish two EU grids at the production level involving numerousapplications and end user goals. EU funding for the Centre’s pro-jects during this period was roughly 7.5 million kuna and the deve-lopment of eScience technologies through these projects repre-sents a key milestone for the future development of scientific pro-ductivity as set out in EU strategy documents defining the vision ofscience in the year 2020.In the Department of Materials Chemistry the Laboratory for ra-diation chemistry and dosimetry has had a major impact in thearea of research covering the fundamental mechanisms of ionizingradiation and its impact on physico-chemical and biological struc-tures. International collaborations in this area of research havebeen realized through IAEA, COST and EU funding mechanisms.Of particular note are collaborations within ERADOS (the Euro-pean Radiation Dosimetry Group) and the CONRAD project (Co-ordinated Network for Radiation Dosimetry) both of which havebeen funded through EU FP6 and FP7 grants. The laboratory forradiation chemistry and dosimetry also has a collaboration withChyoda Technology Corporation (CTC) and financial support fromCTC has allowed for the purchase of several new high technologyinstruments.The Department of Physical Chemistry has many aspects of inter-national activity including two FP6 grants, two COST grants, andbilateral projects with Austria, Hungary, Slovenia and China. Ot-her major bilateral projects include investigator driven collabora-Osvrti, Kem. Ind. 59 (12) 621–626 (2010) 623F i g. 1 – Werner HeisenbergF i g. 2 – Jean-Marie LehnF i g. 3 – Linus PaulingSveèana proslava 60. obljetnice Instituta Ruðer BoškoviæM. Eckert-MaksiæZasluÞna znanstvenica Instituta Ruðer Boškoviæ,Bijenièka 54, ZagrebDana 9. lipnja 2010. godine odrÞana je u koncertnoj dvorani Va-troslava Lisinskog sveèana proslava kojom je obiljeÞena 60. obljet-nica našeg najveæeg znanstvenog instituta Ruðer Boškoviæ. Pokro-vitelji proslave bili su predsjednik RH dr. sc. Ivo Josipoviæ i pred-sjednica Vlade RH gospoða Jadranka Kosor, dipl. iur.Taj datum ima posebnu vaÞnost u povijesti Instituta jer se tada1950. godine na sastanku II. Odjela za matematièke, fizièke i teh-nièke znanosti tadašnje Jugoslavenske akademije znanosti i umjet-nosti (JAZU, sada Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetosti, HAZU)donosi prijedlog za formiranje inicijalnog odbora za osnivanje In-624 Osvrti, Kem. Ind. 59 (12) 621–626 (2010)tions between Croatia and Finland, Israel, Greece, Poland, USA,Germany, UK, Italy and Belgium. From 2001 to 2009 the Depart-ment has participated in the organization of 25 conferences, sum-mer schools or workshops with international participation. In kee-ping with the tradition of scientists training abroad, the Depart-ment has had scientists travel for postdoctoral work to Israel, theUSA, the UK and France.The Department of Molecular Biology although one of the youn-gest departments at the Institute has one of the highest rates ofscientists returnees who have done much of their training in lea-ding European and North American institutions. The departmenthas several ongoing bilateral collaborations with Slovenia, Germa-ny, Austria and Canada. In addition the Department is the coordi-nating center for Croatia for the International Centre for GeneticEngineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB). In addition to fundingthrough bilateral cooperation schemes, the department was alsohome to a FP7 Marie Curie Training grant.Bilaterial projects represent a significant portion of internationalactivities in the Department of Molecular Medicine including col-laborations between scientists in the department with collabora-tors in the USA, Germany, Austria, France, Latvia, Slovenia, Au-stralia and Hungary. The Department is also home to Biozyne, oneof the Institute’s first spin-off companies, which includes an inter-national component in the form of a formal collaboration betweenBiozyne and Dr. Igor Stagljar at the University of Toronto. Withinthe activities of the Department of Molecular Medicine it is impor-tant to point out that through their efforts the Rudjer Boskovic In-stitute is an institutional member of the non-profit association,ECCA (European Cervical Cancer Association) since 2003.The Department of Organic Chemistry/Biochemistry also has along tradition of international collaborations. Projects fundedthrough the UKF, NATO and Croatian Science Foundation sup-port collaborations with Canadian, American and British scientists.Bilateral cooperation funding supports projects of individualscientists with Austria, Italy, China, Germany and Slovenia, whileinformal collaborations exist with Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, theCzech Republic, Estonia, France, India, Israel, Japan, China, Ma-cedonia, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Spain and the USAThe future should see a greater opening up of the Institute to fo-reign scientists who wish to train and perhaps stay in Croatia. Postgraduate training of Rudjer Boskovic scientists abroad will conti-nue to be a priority and development of instruments for easier re-integration of returning scientists will be key to upgrading the in-ternational flavor of research at the Institute. Greater access to Eu-ropean funding will likely form the basis for such researchermobility. Strategic alliances with renowned institutions abroad willalso be pursued. In all the Rudjer Boskovic Institute will seek to de-velop itself not only as a regional scientific beacon, but as a Euro-pean centre of excellence in basic science. International collabo-rations will be key to realizing these goals.S l i k a 1 – Ravnateljica Instituta dr. sc. Danica Ramljak s pred-sjednikom RH dr. sc. Ivom Josipoviæem i ministrom znanosti,obrazovanja i sporta dr. sc. Radovanom FuchsomF i g. 1 – Director general of the Institute, Danica RamljakD.V.M., Ph.D. with the president of Croatia, Dr. Ivo Josipoviæ andminister of science, education and sport Dr. Radovan FuchsS l i k a 2 – Ravnateljica Instituta dr. sc. Danica Ramljak pozdrav-lja akademika Dragu Grdeniæa, èlana Organizacijskog odbora JAZUza osnivanje InstitutaF i g. 2 – Director general of the Institute, Danica RamljakD.V.M., Ph.D., welcomes Academician Drago Grdeniæ who wasthe member of the Organizing board of the Jugoslav Academy ofSciences for foundation of the Institute

International Cooperation at the Rudjer Boskovic Institute

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