On July 8th and 9th, 2026, we hosted a delegation from the Croatian Sisak-Moslavina region at ICUK as part of the program JTPeers Exchange, which is sponsored by the European Commission and the Just Transition Platform. The aim is to connect regions undergoing transition and share what works in practice. The Croatian side was represented by representatives of the Regional Development Agency SIMORA and the PISMO gaming incubator, they were accompanied by a Ukrainian observer. Sisak, located about 90 km from Zagreb, has a profile similar to the Ústí nad Labem Region, it is an industrial area with a high proportion of chemistry and metallurgy, only instead of coal, it is dealing with the decline of the refining and chemical industries.
What did we show each other?
We presented to our Croatian colleagues how our RIS3 strategy actually works, from the plan to specific projects to the impact on the territory, as well as how ICUK functions as the first point of contact for companies in the region. They were particularly interested in the upcoming Makerspace, a shared prototyping center that will be created on the premises. Transformation Center in 2028.
We also reviewed specific support programs: Startup Go! with mentoring for start-ups, the RUR project that teaches entrepreneurship in schools, the Ynovate B2B network for established companies, and cross-border cooperation with Saxony in the digitalization of small and medium-sized enterprises. For each, we discussed what is transferable to the Croatian environment.
The day was rounded off with an excursion to DigiLab at UJEP and the next afternoon a visit to the Czech Technical University in Prague, where the delegation focused on the gaming industry, a topic close to their own incubator PISMO. The topic was also about the EDIH CTU project and its experiences, but mainly about the university course FIT GameJam, in which students develop their own games and compete in the international GameJam competition. It turned out that the Croatian and Czech sides have something to offer each other - from connecting students from both countries to a joint competition in game creation to sharing infrastructure and know-how, which they use in Sisak, for example, for virtual reality and image processing.
What do we take away from this?
We agreed that preparing for European funds after 2028 will lead us to increasingly focus on investments with a real impact on the competitiveness of the region. The specific outcome of the negotiations is the intention to connect our digital innovation hubs – ours through the Czech Technical University, the Croatian one through the University of Zagreb – into a joint project on digitalization, artificial intelligence and industrial automation. The form of cooperation that will ultimately emerge will become clear in the coming months.
