Corporate social responsibility as a modern way of doing business represents the response of organizations to global challenges in a turbulent environment. The best way to apply the social responsibility of organizations is the creation of a proactive program of corporate social responsibility (CSR), which consists of the necessary analyses that need to be performed and the determination of the areas of its application in order to provide an up-to-date response to various emerging situations and challenges in the environment. Organizations, including universities, are increasingly oriented towards global trends and must adjust their strategic goals in order to enable sustainability, growth and development in the future. Society is increasingly aware of the benefits brought by a modern way of doing business that includes social responsibility, with universities striving to adapt and strengthen their civic mission. The purpose of this dissertation was to analyze the application of the concept of social responsibility at Croatian universities. Theoretical insight into the topic of the dissertation gave an overview of the development of the concept of social responsibility and its application in business organizations, as well as a presentation of the development of the concept at universities in the Republic of Croatia. This created a good foundation for the empirical part of the paper, which was related to research on the application of social responsibility at universities. The research was conducted on three research levels. The first approach was related to the content analysis of the presence of CSR components in strategic documents available on the websites of universities in the Republic of Croatia. The second approach was based on a quantitative survey of university stakeholders through a questionnaire on awareness of the concept of corporate social responsibility and their perception of the application of the concept at universities. And finally, the third approach referred to the application of benchmarking analysis, i.e. to the comparison of corporate social responsibility of universities in the Republic of Croatia and universities in the European Union. Its application is significant because contemporary research has shown that socially responsible universities are at the very top in terms of excellence and competitiveness. Realization of social responsibility at universities requires a more intensive implementation of the concept of CSR in educational curricula and strategic documents and the introduction of reporting on sustainable and socially responsible business operations. From the perspective of university stakeholders (administration, employees, students), the application of CSR at universities is rated best by the administration, and worst bx employees. The university's social responsibility areas organizational management, student affairs and human rights were rated above average, which gives the opportunity for improvements in less evaluated areas such as fair business operations, work practices, community involvement and development, environmental protection.