How to Find a PhD Supervisor in Croatia (and Get Funded)

Most guides to doing a PhD in Croatia describe it as a straightforward EU member state with a national science funder, apply through the agency, get a scholarship. That is not how it actually works. The Croatian Science Foundation (Hrvatska zaklada za znanost, HRZZ) does not hand doctoral funding to individual applicants who submit a proposal. It funds mentors who already hold active research projects, and those mentors, through their host institution, then hire a doctoral student onto that project as paid staff. Once you understand that the money sits with the project first, the search stops being "which Croatian scholarship should I apply for" and becomes "which specific professor, with an active grant, is about to need a doctoral researcher," which is a narrower but far more answerable question.

Where Croatian PhD research actually happens

Croatia's doctoral training is concentrated at a handful of institutions. The University of Zagreb is by far the largest, with doctoral programmes spread across dozens of faculties, from the Faculty of Science (physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics) to the School of Medicine and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing. The University of Rijeka, University of Split, and University of Osijek run smaller but active doctoral schools, and each sets its own admission rules, mentor requirements, and enrollment fees rather than following one national template. Outside the universities, a meaningful share of funded research, especially in the natural sciences, happens at national institutes working in close partnership with them, the Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb being the most prominent example for physics, chemistry, and biomedicine. Doctoral students at these institutes are typically enrolled in a university's doctoral programme on paper while doing their actual day-to-day research inside the institute's labs, so a search limited to university department pages alone will miss real capacity.

HRZZ funds the mentor's project, not the student's application

HRZZ's relevant instrument is the Young Researchers' Career Development Programme, run through periodic "DOK" calls (recent rounds include DOK-2021-02, DOK-2023-10, and DOK-2025-02). These calls do not accept applications from prospective doctoral students. Instead, a researcher who already holds, or is a core team member on, a competitive research project, an HRZZ grant, a Horizon Europe grant, or similar, applies to add a funded doctoral position to that project. HRZZ sets eligibility conditions on the mentor: they generally need to have held their own doctorate for at least a set number of years, be employed at an eligible Croatian institution, and have enough project runway left (recent calls have required at least 18 months remaining on the source project at the application deadline) to cover the funding period. Only institutions, not individual students, submit the application, and only one mentor candidate per source project is typically allowed per call round.

If HRZZ approves the mentor and the funding, the host institution then runs its own public recruitment to fill the actual doctoral position, publishing the call, collecting applications, and running a selection committee. That recruitment, not a national HRZZ portal, is where a candidate's own application goes. The funding itself covers the doctoral student's gross salary as an employee, calculated for up to four years in most rounds, which functions like a paid research job rather than a scholarship or stipend paid separately from employment. Because these DOK calls run periodically rather than on a rolling basis, and because each one is tied to mentors whose projects were active at that specific moment, the practical target for an applicant is a professor with a live grant right now, not a recurring portal to monitor.

Why Erasmus+ is not the funding mechanism it sounds like

Because Croatia is an EU member and Erasmus+ is the EU's flagship education programme, it is easy to assume Erasmus+ funds Croatian PhDs the way HRZZ does. It generally does not. Erasmus+ is structured around mobility, short study or research exchanges, joint international doctoral programmes with built-in mobility components, and staff exchanges, rather than paying a doctoral candidate's core multi-year living costs at a single Croatian institution. The EU funding that has actually sat behind HRZZ's doctoral salary calls has come through other channels. Earlier DOK rounds were financed through the European Social Fund, and more recent ones through Croatia's National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the EU-backed post-pandemic recovery instrument, rather than through Erasmus+ itself. If you come across a programme description that mentions Erasmus+ alongside a Croatian doctorate, check carefully whether it is funding a mobility period attached to the degree or the degree's core funding, those are structurally different things and the distinction matters when you are deciding whether a programme actually supports you financially for four years or only for a semester abroad.

If there is no open DOK position in your field

Two fallback routes are worth asking a prospective supervisor about directly. First, some mentors with active projects hire doctoral students as paid research assistants funded directly from the project budget, without going through a formal DOK call, this is worth asking about even when no public HRZZ recruitment is currently advertised. Second, self-funded doctoral enrollment remains available at Croatia's public universities, and tuition for this route is genuinely modest at some faculties. The University of Zagreb's Faculty of Science, for example, lists doctoral tuition for its physics programme at roughly €1,100 per year, covering administration and coursework rather than a living stipend. The European Commission's own Study in Europe country profile for Croatia gives a wider general range across fields, roughly €1,000 to €10,400 per year depending on the subject and institution, so treat any single figure as indicative and confirm the current fee directly with the specific faculty before assuming it applies to your programme. Self-funded enrollment solves the degree requirement but not living costs, so it is usually a bridge while you look for a funded position rather than a long-term plan.

What the euro and Schengen membership actually change

Croatia adopted the euro on 1 January 2023, replacing the kuna, and joined the Schengen Area the same day for land and sea borders, with internal air border checks following on 26 March 2023. For a doctoral applicant, this mainly affects two practical things. Budgeting and comparing costs across other eurozone countries becomes simpler, since you are working in one currency rather than converting from kuna. And once you already hold the right to be in the Schengen Area, whether as an EU citizen or as a non-EU resident with a valid Croatian permit, travel to conferences or collaborators in most other EU countries no longer involves a passport check at the border. What it does not do is change Croatia's own residence rules for a non-EU, non-EEA national moving there to study. Schengen membership governs movement between member states for people who are already lawfully resident somewhere in the area, it is not a visa-free entry route into Croatia itself for a multi-year stay, so the residence permit step below still applies in full.

The residence permit step for non-EU candidates

Non-EU, non-EEA doctoral candidates generally need a temporary stay permit for the purpose of study. Some nationalities apply at a Croatian embassy or consulate before traveling and receive approval before entry; others, depending on visa-exemption status, can apply at a local police administration shortly after arriving in Croatia. Either way you will need proof of admission to a doctoral programme, a valid travel document, evidence of sufficient funds to support yourself, and valid health insurance. Published guidance lists modest administrative and biometric fees for the permit itself, and permits are typically issued for one year at a time and renewed annually for the length of the programme. Exact documents, processing times, and whether you apply before or after arrival depend on your nationality and on which university is hosting you, so confirm the current process directly with your target university's international office and, where needed, the Croatian Ministry of the Interior, rather than assuming a generic Schengen tourist-visa process covers a multi-year doctoral stay.

A practical search order

• Identify which Croatian university, or affiliated institute (Ruđer Bošković Institute and similar), actually does active work in your subfield, rather than starting from a generic country list.
• Find specific professors who are publishing current work in that area, and check whether they hold an active HRZZ, Horizon Europe, or comparable competitive grant, since that is the real prerequisite for a funded doctoral slot.
• Email that professor directly, referencing their recent published work specifically, and ask whether they currently have, or expect, an HRZZ-funded doctoral position opening, or another route to fund a doctoral researcher on their project.
• If the answer is no funded slot right now, ask whether self-funded enrollment combined with a paid research assistant role on their project is realistic, rather than assuming the door is closed.
• Separately, start the residence permit conversation with your target university's international office as soon as you have any indication of admission, since that process runs on its own timeline.

GradScoutFunding is built for the identification and outreach step in that list: it searches professors by field and country, confirms they are actively publishing right now, and drafts a personalized first email grounded in their real recent paper for you to review and send yourself, it never sends anything automatically, including any follow-up. What it cannot do is confirm whether a specific professor currently holds project funding with room for a new HRZZ-backed doctoral position, that detail only surfaces once you actually email them and ask. The approach matters more in a system like Croatia's, where the funding is tied to the project rather than a portal, than in a country with a single national scholarship you can apply to directly. The free tier gives 2 free credits, no card required, and paid credit packs are one-time purchases that never expire. If you are weighing Croatia against a nearby option, the mechanics differ in ways worth knowing before you commit time to one search over the other: Slovenia's ARIS young researcher scheme works on a similar institution-first logic, while Cyprus runs a noticeably different funding structure.

Common questions