PRAVNA I FUNKCIONALNA INTEGRACIJA SVEUČILIŠTA U REPUBLICI HRVATSKOJ
LEGAL AND FUNCTIONAL INTEGRATION OF UNIVERSITIES IN THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA

Summary/Abstract: In the academic year 2006/2007, the Republic of Croatia started the implementation of, the Bologna Process for the purpose of establishing a common European Higher Education Area together with 45 signatories to the Bologna Declaration by the end of 2010. The period preceding the introduction of the new model of higher education was marked by'an intensive work on creating legislative and institutional assumptions for the. implementation of the new process;, The legislative framework for the first phase'of this process was completed in July 2004 by amending and supplementing the Scientific Research and Higher Education Act ("Narodne novine", No. 123/03, 198/0,j 105/04 and 174/04), and by entering into force the Act on the Recognition of International Education Qualifications ('"Narodne novine", No. 158/03, 198/03 and 130/06). New bodies and institutions of the system were being established at the same time. The establishment of the institutional framework started in April 2004 by appointing the National Committee for the monitoring of the Bologna Process, proceeded in the second half of 2004 by instituting the national ENIC/NARIC office and by constituting the National Council for Higher Education and the National Council for Science, and was completed in March 2005 by instituting the Agency for Science and Higher Education.The Bologna Process has encompassed all the universities in Croatia, including the Universities of Zagreb (established in 1669), Rijeka (1973), Split (1974), Osijek (1975), as well as most recently established Universities of Zadar (2002), Dubrovnik (2003) and Pula (2006). The practice has shown that, for a long period of time, the largest and oldest Croatian universities were dysfunctional organized, whereby the constituent parts (Faculties) had autonomy to create their own policies independently, from the overall academic and administrative activities at the university level The new reform calls for a financial, functional and legal integration of the university.The financial aspect of the integration has been provided for at the beginning of the year 2006 by introducing a new model of comprehensive funding of higher education institutions (the so-called "lump sum model"), which enabled the higher education institutions to autonomously manage their financial assets secured by means of the State Budget (calculation on the financial assets). The functional integration has been enabled by the legislative framework and some statutory provisions, which prescribe a more efficient organizational model by correlating different parts and activities at the University. However, the legal solutions do not cater for the legal integration; consequently, there is still a number of related issues open to further discussion: whether the legal integration of the universities does or does not imply the revocation of the legal capacity of its constituent parts (Faculties); which level of "legal" autonomy should be given to the constituents, and in which parts of the administration universities should be entitled to preserve their autonomy. There is an assumption that the answers to the above questions do not have an equal significance for all the Croatian universities. Besides, some changes in the legal status of the university constituents give rise to a large number of legal issues, and necessitate further harmonization at the level of the entire legal system in Croatia.

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