You are here: For the applicantsNews and eventsNewsNews of the Office
More applications for exploratory research funding
More applications for exploratory research funding
19 April 2016
Modified: 14 December 2017
Reading time: 2 minute(s)
This year, the number of applications submitted for funds available for promising researcher-initiated basic research projects has increased by 18% since 2015 and by 29% since 2014. The programme budget of HUF 7 billion, an amount significantly larger than in last year, was open to apply until 17 March for research project proposals in any field of science without thematic priorities.

In four groups of scientific fields (Humanities and Social Sciences; Mathematical, Physical, Chemical and Engineering Sciences; Medical and Biological Sciences; Agricultural, Ecological and Earth Sciences) more than 1145 researcher-initiated – and often interdisciplinary – thematic applications were submitted to the NRDI Office, which marks increased interest to apply for funding compared to the past years. The total demand for funds neared HUF 34 billion which is a 42% increase compared to 2015, and 62% compared to 2014. This also means that this year only one-fifth of the applications can be awarded from the NRDI Fund.

In these 1145 project proposals 6786 leading and participating researchers are involved altogether, with scheduled full time equivalent (FTE) of 9,055. The number of applicants under 40 years of age has increased by nearly 2.5, accounting for 22% of all applications submitted. One of the underlying reasons is that this year postdoctoral research projects are also funded from this programme, as the HUF 1.8 billion budget of the postdoctoral excellence programme is now only available for covering personal and wage-like costs.

The changes in the programme substantially rearranged the demand for funds which shows differently in each fields of science. In humanities and social sciences, personal costs remained to be the highest type of cost, accounting for 47% of the planned total amount. Life and natural sciences, however, are dominated by material costs, which account for 55 to 65% of the planned project budget in these applications. Investment costs continue to stay below 10% of the planned total costs in all fields of science, despite the fact that even larger amounts could be awarded for this purpose in the programme.

All in all, it is apparent that the highest amounts have been requested by projects in medical sciences and biology, but when it comes to the increase in funding demands compared to the last years, the top fields are natural sciences and agriculture. Although researchers do try to take advantage of the increased amount available for individual applicants, preliminary data show that budget plans remained in line with the submitted research plans so, contrary to some worries, the greater scope for action has not resulted in unrealistic over-budgeting.

Updated: 14 December 2017
Feedback
Was this page helpful?