Advancing Croatia’s Scientific, Technological, and Educational growth via a PanEuropean Cutting edge Project

LOFAR (LOw Frequency Array) is a world-class radio telescope being built as a joint European project. LOFAR will achieve breakthrough sensitivity for astronomical observations thanks to its cutting-edge technological approach. The instrument consists of a large number of stations with FM antennae distributed throughout Europe. The system sensitivity improves with the number of stations, and the overall resolution improves with the station separation. There is a strong interest from an inter-disciplinary team of Croatian scientists to join the LOFAR project and host a LOFAR station in Croatia (CRO-LOFAR project).
Croatia's geographical distance relative to existing LOFAR stations would contribute to substantial improvement in the resulting system resolution. For Croatia, the benefits include the establishment of several astrophysical, computer science, geophysical, and agricultural science teams. These teams would also work on cutting-edge projects applicable to non-scientific sectors. An inevitable and immediate positive outcome of CRO-LOFAR will be a significant scientific, technological, and educational growth, particularly in the region hosting the proposed station.