The Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research was founded in 1948 in Zagreb. It is a renowned center for folkloristic, ethnological, ethnomusicological and related scientific research in the Republic of Croatia. The members of the Institute are experts in a variety of disciplines, such as: ethnology, cultural anthropology, folklore studies, literary theory, theatre studies, music studies, choreology, and art history. They are engaged in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research into historical and contemporary cultural phenomena and processes contributing to different academic and educational programs, workshops, summer schools, conferences and community programs with their specialization knowledge.

Within their research projects – such as Citymaking (HRZZ project, 2014-2018), Humanities at Scale: Evolving the DARIAH-ERIC (HaS-DARIAH, Horizon 2020, 2015-2017), Closing the Gap Between Formal and Informal Institutions in the Balkans (Horizon 2020, 2016-2019), Human-Animal Relationships in Archaeology (Marie S. Curie Actions, Individual Fellowship, 2015-2018), Transwork (HRZZ project 2017-2021), Narrating Fear (HRZZ project 2017-2021) – members of the Institute have accomplished new research agenda and established cooperation with related academic institutions in the EU and beyond.

The Institute has a rich library and collection of ethnographic materials, where more than ten thousand manuscript collections, audio and video recordings, photographs and films are held. The Institute also publishes the Nova etnografija series with more than hundreds volumes published so far, as well as the academic journal Narodna Umjetnost. The Director of the Institute is dr. sc. Iva Niemčić.

The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Zagreb (FFZG) is the largest higher education institution in Croatia which carries out research activities and executes university programs in the field of humanities and social sciences. FFZG is part of the University of Zagreb, the oldest university in Croatia and one of the oldest universities in Europe. FFZG is also a significant cultural institution with a great impact on Croatian culture and society.

Today it offers 189 BA and MA Programmes in humanities (anthropology, archaeology, ethnology and cultural anthropology, comparative literature, history, history of art, linguistics, philosophy, phonetics, pedagogy, and languages and literatures – Croatian, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indology, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Rumanian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, East, West and South Slavic languages) and social sciences (information sciences, pedagogy, psychology, sociology), as well as 19 PhD Programmes.

FFZG is currently involved in more than 40 projects financed from different national and international funds (Adris Foundation, Croatian Science Foundation, Ministry of Culture, Erasmus+, Horizon 2020, European Social Fund, European Fund for Regional Development, Research Council of Norway, Economic and Social Research Council UK etc.). There are two Departments within it: the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology and the Department of Croatian Language and Literature (specifically the Chair of Croatian Oral Literature).

Since 1986 the members of the Chair of Croatian Oral Literature have instructed students in folklore fieldwork research and these small student projects resulted in the Archive of Manuscript Collections containing contemporary records of Croatian folklore genres (songs, folktales, proverbs, child-lore and other genres), which makes the Archive the largest collection of contemporary Croatian oral folklore genres. Due to the fact that the students were doing their fieldwork research mostly in their local community, those records are the faithful witness of active and passive repertoire of different communities in Croatia (and many Croatian communities outside of Croatia).

The Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology has a rich archive, with material gathered during field research, in the frame of scientific projects, and as part of teaching activities since the establishment of the Department in the 1920s. It contains valuable materials from the Ethnological Atlas project, as well as diverse archive material on a variety of topics (research records, photographs and video material, students’ seminars and graduation thesis, etc.).

The Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology publishes scientific journal Studia ethnologica Croatica, and it is a co-publisher of the journal of Croatian Ethnological Society Etnološka tribina. Books and edited volumes written by the members of the Department are published by Croatian and international publishers (among others, FF-press of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Croatian Ethnological Society, etc.).

In 2015, the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, together with the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, organised the 12th international SIEF (International Society for Ethnology and Folklore) congress, which gathered over 900 participants.