The Governing Board of the National Foundation for Science, Higher Education and Technological Development of the Republic of Croatia (NZZ) at its last session in 2009 positively evaluated project Cambridge Structural Database Workshop in Zagreb by the RBI scientist Alexander Višnjevac, PhD. Based on this evaluation the RBI will host the Workshop on March 3rd and 4th 2010. The workshop will gather postgraduate and doctoral students from five countries of the Southeast European region (Croatia, Slovenia, B&H, Serbia and Macedonia).

At the annual meeting of the Croatian Chemical Society, Nikola Basarić, PhD was awarded with the prestigious award 'Leopold Ružička'. This award is given annually to young Croatian scientists for excellence in academic work in the field of chemistry.

The Ruđer Bošković Institute partnered with the Energy Institute Hrvoje Požar, HEP Renewable Energy Sources, the City of Šibenik, the Šibenik-Knin County, Private Gymnasium in Šibenik, as well as numerous scientific authorities and local companies, to establish new international graduate study of energy and ecology in Šibenik. This will be the first of such international study programmes ever launched in Croatia.

RBI scientists Branko Pivac, PhD, Nikola Basarić, PhD, and Irena Ciglenečki-Jušić, PhD, were granted three Croatian-Chinese bilateral projects based on the Protocol signed at the 4th session of the Croatian-Chinese Commission for Scientific and Technological Cooperation which was recently held in Beijing.

RBI Division of Laser and Atomic Research and Development (DLARD) has successfully recertified its Quality Management System (QMS) for ISO 9001:2008 certification, the latest global benchmark in the standards of excellence.

The paper by RBI scientists professor Zvonimir Maksić, PhD, and Robert Vianello, PhD, on computer design and synthesis of a new superbaze with interesting properties, was published in one of the most cited journals in chemistry - Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Professor Daniel Ferenc, PhD, a professor at the University of California, Davis, USA, will give a lecture titled: An Opportunity for Croatia - Novel Photosensors for Next-Generation Projects in (Astro) Particle Physics, Medical Imaging, And Defense on December 1, 2009 at the RBI.

Strategic Meeting on the Opportunities and Benefits of Croatian Membership in the European Organization for Nuclear Research – CERN gathered today at the RBI leadership of CERN, distinguished representatives of the Croatian scientific and academic community, senior Croatian government officials from the Ministry of Science, Health, Economy and Foreign Affairs, as well as high representatives of ICT, civil engineering and electrical engineering industry to discuss the possibilities and benefits that Croatia's potential membership in CERN would create for its science, education and business sector.

The American Chamber of Commerce and a consulting company Vernexo are organizing the first Croatian business conference on the Intellectual Property – Intelektiv, which will take place on 25 February 2010 at Hotel Sheraton in Zagreb. The one-day conference will gather leading Croatian and foreign experts and entrepreneurs, as well as representatives of SMBs and large enterprises. The Conference content is organized around business benefits and practical guidance to companies in managing and protecting patents, copyright and trademarks to share their knowledge and experiences on intellectual property.

Vjekoslav Štrukil, BSc, Research Assistant in the RBI Laboratory of Physical-Organic Chemistry, received the CrystEngComm Award for the poster titled A Mechanochemical Approach Towards Solvent-Free Synthesis at the recent Symposium on Mechanochemistry and Solvent-Free Synthesis, held on 6-7 November at Queen's University Belfast in Belfast (UK). The study presented on the awarded poster was created in cooperation with Dr. Tomislav Friščić from the Materials Chemistry Group at the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge.