There has been a steady flow of incoming news recounting the catastrophic events that have happened in Croatia in the past two months. These events – after a series of earthquakes having struck Zagreb in May – have most recently culminated in the region of Petrinia and Sisak, on 28 and 29 December 2020, causing immense damage. Resulting in six deaths, destroying villages and towns, this catastrophe went on to also cause a dramatic devastation to the area's cultural and religious heritage – more than ten churches were severely damaged and the cathedral in Sisak destroyed.

This unfortunate sequence of events had a lasting impact on our partner university, the Catholic University of Croatia, as indeed many of their students live in the affected area and have been made homeless, with their property severely damaged. Therefore, we feel that it is our Christian duty to help and provide our partner institution with compassion, attention and any support we can. The best way to do this, besides our prayers and thoughts, is to raise money through the solidarity fund created by the University. This would help people who are forced to be outside in the cold with minimal or non-existent lodgings (this season in Croatia temperatures are well below 0 °C).

With this call for solidarity, we aim to support everyone we can at the Catholic University of Croatia: students, teachers, colleagues and their families, who have been gravely set back by the aforementioned tragic events. We sincerely hope that our students, alumni, professors and employees will donate to the best of their ability. Our primary goal is to get everyone with lacking accommodation to a safe lodging, while also promoting the rebuilding efforts.

• Donations are to be sent to the following account:
  • IBAN: HR1123400091110353987
  • SWIFT/BIC: PBZGHR2X
  • Description: CUC Donation Solidarity Fund
• Alternatively, you may put your donations in the donation box next to the porter's booth at the entrance of the Faculty.
• Further information on our partner university can be found here.

Pázmány Péter Catholic University and the Catholic University of Croatia have been in close scientific and educational cooperation for several years. In the autumn semester of 2021, our Faculty of Information Technology and Bionics plans to launch a joint Software Engineering Masters program with the Catholic University of Croatia, with a particular emphasis on data analyzation in social sciences. Our joint programs also include fields of humanities and social sciences such as psychology, sociology and cultural studies (all pertaining to Erasmus scholarships); journalism, history and archeology. A good example of the cooperation between the two Universities is the contribution of Croatian students to the discovery of the Syrian castle, Margat, coordinated by the Institution of Archeology of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Pázmány Péter Catholic University.