The scholarship programme supports the scientific careers of talented young Hungarians, tailored to the R&D needs of industry and technology sectors. Almost 90 percent of the programme’s budget will be used to support students in STEM+ (science, technology, engineering, maths, computer science, agriculture, medicine, health and arts). Doctoral students as grantees also contribute to the RDI activities of the company that employs them.

“The John von Neumann Programme’s strategic package of actions is about linking research and the economy, and ensuring the next generation of researchers is a key element of this. The Cooperative Doctoral Programme is a highly important instrument in this context,” said Balázs Hankó, State Secretary for Innovation and Higher Education of the Ministry of Culture and Innovation (KIM), at the announcement event. In order for Hungary to move even higher up the innovation scoreboard and become one of the top ten innovators in Europe by the end of the decade, the number of Hungarian R&D staff and patents must also increase significantly, the State Secretary stressed.

Grantees of the Cooperative Doctoral Progeamme will receive a monthly grant of HUF 400,000 net for 24 to 43 months to work on their research topic in collaboration with a business, within the institutional framework of a Hungarian university’s doctoral school. In addition to the young researcher, support is also provided to the host doctoral school, the university supervisor and the experts of the businesses involved. In the framework of the programme, which has been running since 2020, 516 research projects of doctoral students have already received funding from the National Research, Development and Innovation Office, with a total value of around HUF 18 billion.

The list of funding decisions by institution is available on the website of the National Research, Development and Innovation Office.