One of the major impediments for development of the biomedical research at the University of Rijeka has been the lack of a competitive research environment. Perhaps this is because many universities in this region retain remnants of the old socialist approach to medical education and research. Because of the limited internal resources, most of the training of the young investigators has been accomplished in the laboratories of Western countries. Although this tradition has proven to be beneficial, it has led to loss of promising scientists to faculty positions and slowed the development of a modern biomedical research. Furthermore, translational research has not been a traditional area of research in Croatia. Correction of these roadblocks can be accomplished by upgrading the research capacity and by expanding the cooperation between scientists from Croatia and those in the EU. Such an approach has already been successfully applied in several instances and is continuing to propel an increase in the research capacity at the University of Rijeka. However, it is of great importance to stress that the expansion of clinical research activities is still lagging behind basic research. The Faculty of Medicine (MEDRI) has already well-developed programs in life sciences, a respectable infrastructure, and ongoing international collaborations. The following steps in research capacity building are to further strengthen the collaboration between investigators at MEDRI and the EU countries, organize and develop formal training programmes for investigators and implement an efficient program of research capacity building with emphasis on the translational medicine in cancer and infectious diseases. Thus, several activities are proposed to synchronize training of researchers with efforts to upgrade and establish research facilities to be used by several research groups and departments. The proposed activities should ultimately enable MEDRI to better integrate into the ERA.