In recent years, the European Union has seen important breakthroughs in virtually all fields, including the field of science teaching as well. This is also a good motivation factor for the development of science, especially for those branches of science with relevance to biomedicine, and this implicates the necessity of constant adjustments to any new changes, as well as pushing the limits of one’s own achievements. Our School could not but join this flow; even more so since academic education has become the basis of the knowledge society. Therefore, our tasks aim at a continuous interchange of knowledge, information and ideas, as we seek to incorporate ourselves into an open European area of higher education.

The University of Zagreb is not only oriented towards education, but also towards science. Hence, the task of our studies is education of experts, and also of scientific novices and scientists in the field of dental medicine. Our commitment to this goal has motivated us to implement numerous modifications and amendments to our integrated undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate specialist and doctoral degree programmes, which we sought to make comparable to the curricula of other European universities. To meet these challenges requires changing of some deeply rooted ideas about teaching dental medicine, as well as introducing contemporary technologies for scientific research activities. Aiming to preserve their own national particularities, many countries at the same time provide for the regulation of the use of their national language, which is of great value since such practice ensures that academic education meets the needs of our society.