More than 90% of the proposers applying for non-refundable grants of HUF 100 to 600 million (EUR 0.3 to 1.9 million) for their projects, falls into the category of small or medium size companies.

The Funding to SMEs and large companies for RDI activities (2018-1.1.2-KFI) call anounced this January encourages undertakings of the Central Hungary region (i.e. Budapest and Pest county) to develop new, marketable products, services and technologies with significant intellectual added value, their activities reaching at least the prototype or MVP (minimum viable product) phase. The call invited project proposals that fit in with one of the priorities identified in the National Smart Specialisation Strategy. Altogether 212 project proposals were submitted to the call by the deadline of 15 May 2018 with total funding request over HUF 59 billion (EUR 193 million), while total project costs exceed HUF 106 billion (EUR 347.5 million) altogether. The ratio of funding requests to total project costs implies that applicants are ready to invest significant own funds in the implementation of proposed innovation projects.  SMEs showed an outstanding willingness to apply, since the overwhelming majority of the proposals were submitted by small and medium enterprises: 133 projects came from small size enterprises and further 64 from medium ones.

After the formal assessment, peer reviews and panel evaluation of the project proposals, funding decisions are expected to be announced in August, as scheduled in the evaluation timeline published on the website.

Among the schemes announced by the NRDI Office to increase the competitiveness of Hungarian SMEs, a recently closed call is dedicated to support micro and small size enterprises applying for funding for the development, market entry and intellectual property protection of quickly marketable, innovative products, services and procedures in the Central Hungary region. The Competitiveness and excellence cooperations (2018-1.3.1-VKE) call has a total budget of HUF 26 billion (EUR 85 million) while requests submitted are twice as much. After the formal assessment, peer reviews and panel evaluation of the project proposals, funding decisions are expected to be announced in July 2018 as scheduled in the evaluation timeline published on the website.