Tempus is founded in 1990 and is currently in its IV (forth) phase which begun in 2008 with a call for proposals lasting from January to April. There are 3 (three) types of Tempus projects: individual (up to 2007), structural (SM) and joint projects. The total budget for this call was around €51 million, with JEP projects able to gaining funding between €0.5 and €1.5 million. New projects under this call started at the end of 2008. Tempus is managed by the European Commission's education and culture, enlargement and aid departments. It is financed through three of the European Commission's external assistance instruments.
The Republic of Croatia has been a part of the program for 8 years via its national Tempus office, up to this point, only as a partner of grant holders from the EU countries. For the first time this year, Croatia had a right to apply for a project as a grant holder. Republic of Croatia submitted 40 project applications. The evaluation was positive for 7 projects. University of Zagreb was exceptionally successful because out of 17 project applications, 5 were approved; and out of these 5, the University of Zagreb is a grant holder of 2 projects: SM Opening University towards Society: Linking Education – Research – Innovation (a coordinator being the vice-rector Melita Kovačević) and the other, Fostering Entrepreneurship in Higher Eduction - FoSentHE (grant holder Prof. Marina Dabić, PhD, Full Professor of Entrepreneurship and International Business at Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb - http://www.efzg.hr/default.aspx?id=9552)=. For the first time we shall manage a budget of about 1.200.000 euros, 5% of which is co-funded by the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports which provided support in the phase of preparing the project application for which we are especially grateful.