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1. Political Commitment to Evidence-Based Youth Policy

2. Cooperation between policy-making and research

3. National Statistics and available data sources

4. Budgetary Allocations supporting research in the youth field

Political commitment to evidence-based youth policy

The creation of youth policies in Croatia is being carried out, as stated in the National Youth Programme, in line with the recommendations of the European Union and the good practice of the Council of Europe in drafting documents whereby public policies are defined via knowledge-based and evidence-based approaches. All policy documents within the framework of policies for young people are based on official statistics, the results of scientific research on youth, documents of the European Commission and the Council of Europe relating to youth and strategic documents of the Government of the Republic of Croatia in relevant areas. It should be noted that members of the academic community dealing with youth have always been involved in all expert working groups for the creation, definition, regulation or analysis of any of the youth policy segments.

Cooperation between policy-making and research

There are three modes of co-operation between the research public and policy decision-makers. The first mode is research that serves as a basis for the development of normative and other documents related to youth policy. Since 2000, such analyses have been made for the writing of national youth programmes, the Youth Act, the Act on Youth Advisory Boards and research to define work with young people is currently underway. The second mode of cooperation involves social scientists in the process of drafting the aforementioned documents, i.e. appointing researchers to expert working groups related to youth policy. Since 2000, members of the academic community dealing with youth have been members of all working groups for drafting normative acts. The third mode of cooperation concerns consultations of policymakers and researchers whose scientific interest focuses on a specific aspect of youth policy.

National statistics and available data sources

• Croatian Bureau of Statistics; census 2011 
• Institute for Social Research, Centre for Youth and Gender Studies, which is responsible for studying youth and women. The Centre carries out research in the scientific fields of sociology, political science and philosophy, with an emphasis on the interdisciplinary approach and the longitudinal monitoring of social phenomena and processes

Budgetary allocations supporting research in the youth field

There are no governmental budgetary allocations supporting research in the youth field.