It was highlighted in the press release that so far five proposals have been selected for funding with a total amount of HUF 807 million. The funding awarded under the different schemes will support the participation of Hungarian organisations and researchers in EUREKA, ERA-NET, Horizon Europe Accelerator and Austrian-Hungarian science and technology cooperation programmes, and encourage the use of internationally high-quality research infrastructures in Hungary and abroad.

The support for Hungarian participation in the EUREKA programme (2020-1.2.3-EUREKA) helps the entrepreneurial sector, especially innovative SMEs, to get involved in international R&D cooperation, providing domestic co-funding for successful Hungarian participants in international calls.

The scheme “Support for Hungarian organisations successfully participating in the joint international calls of ERA-NET COFUND and EJP COFUND” (2019-2.1.7-ERA-NET) provides domestic co-funding to Hungarian participants who have been selected for funding in any of these international calls. The Horizon Europe Accelerator Call (2021-1.2.2-EU_KKV) supports innovative SMEs in preparing a feasibility study, including a business plan, necessary for the development of their international project proposal, the announcement said.

The “Call for project proposals implemented in bilateral science and technology (S&T) cooperation” (2021-1.2.4-TÉT) facilitates joint projects with other countries, in this case Austrian institutions, by supporting researcher mobility and the exchange of experts. The call “Support for the use of international and domestic research infrastructures” (2021-4.1.2-NEMZ_KI) stimulates researcher mobility by giving domestic researchers access to major international research infrastructures and encouraging the use of internationally connected major domestic research infrastructures by foreign researchers, the announcement said.

László György, State Secretary for Innovation and Higher Education of the Ministry of Culture and Innovation, said in the press release that the aim is to help researchers get closer to the Nobel Prize. “I believe that we can do it, because the potential is there in Hungarian researchers and in our education system. To achieve our goal, it is essential that domestic players, including R&D businesses, higher education institutions, research institutes and individual researchers, become increasingly involved in the world’s scientific community and in forward-looking international collaborations,” he said.

The aim of the international grant applications is also to enable Hungarian organisations to compete more effectively in the international race for research and innovation funding, especially in the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, because they can have access to more resources than in Hungary to achieve their goals, he stressed.

The Ministry also announced that Horizon Europe, the European Union’s seven-year framework programme for research and innovation launched in 2021, offers a larger budget than ever before: EUR 95.5 billion. In the previous seven-year cycle, Hungarian organisations received altogether EUR 373 million in EU funding for 1589 successful projects, which accounted for only 0.6% of the total Horizon 2020 budget.

The Government aims to increase Hungary’s share in awarded direct-access EU funds to 2.18% in proportion to the country’s population. This year, the National Research, Development and Innovation Office will have a total budget of HUF 6 billion to support projects aimed at international integration, the Ministry explained in the press release.

Source: mti.hu