Jakov Radovčić was born in Kostanje by Omiš. After graduating in geology and palaeontology from the Science Faculty of Zagreb University he worked as assistant in the Geological and Palaeological Collection of then Yugoslav Academy. In 1970 he enrolled in a post-graduate course in palaeontology and biostratigraphy at his old faculty.
As part of work carried out by the Geological and Palaeological Museum in Zagreb with the Washington Smithsonian Institute in 1972 he took part in an American-Croatian project researching fossil fish from the Cretaceous strata of the Adriatic Carbonate platform. In the same year he won a Joyce and Zlatko Baloković scholarship for post-graduate further studies in palaeontology at Harvard University, which he spent in the Biology Department of Illinois University in Chicago. He acquired his MSc in biology with a particular interest in palaeontology of vertebrates in 1974.
From 1975 to 1978 he was a part time assistant in the Geological and Palaeontological Institute of the Science Faculty and from 1980 he was curator of the Collection of Fossil Vertebrates and the Krapina Pleistocene of the GP Museum in Zagreb.
He had several spells at the natural science and palaeoanthropology departments of several American universities, often obtaining monthly scholarships in museums in European and extra-European countries.
During his museum work he initiated or took part in the production of many museological and scientific projects. He was the author of the first programme conception for the work of the Croatian Natural History Museum, a member of many editorial boards, the president of the Croatian Association of Museum Officers, a member of the Croatian Museum Council. He has to date published either solo or jointly four monographs, thirty or so scientific and many specialised and popular scientific works, at home and abroad.
He devised the conception of the Museum of Krapina Neanderthals and for many popular science television and radio programmes at home and abroad.
In 2009. was awarded by Croatian Museum Association with „Pavao Ritter Vitezović“ award for a lifetime achievement. In 2010. Croatian Museum Association awarded paleonthologist M.Sc Jakov Radovčić and architect Željko Kovačić and their team for the project and realistion of Museum of Krapina Neanderthals.

NB. Data taken from the questionnaire, material taken from the Personnel Archives of the MDC, and from an interview recorded on May 28, 2007.; information about the awards was taken from the Croatian Museum Association web page (http://www.hrmud.hr/clanak/Nagrada_za_zivotno-djelo-Pavao-Ritter-Vitezovic/20, http://www.hrmud.hr/clanak/Godisnja-nagrada-HMD-a/19, access 05.04.2012.)