Who can apply

The following types of organisations having a legal personality and a registered seat in Hungary:

• higher education institutions, research centres, research institutions, budgetary organs, budgetary organs’ institutions with legal personality, provided that they qualify as research centres under Act LXXVI of 2014 on scientific research, development and innovation (hereinafter: “RDI Act”);
  
• non-profit organisations qualifying as research and development organisations according to their core activity
  

(hereinafter: “host institution”) jointly with a Hungarian or foreign national researcher (hereinafter: “postdoctor”) meeting the following requirements.

Throughout the entire project implementation period the legal relationship between the host institution and the postdoctor has to meet the following conditions:

• during the project implementation period the postdoctor has to be a full-time worker of the host institution under an employment contract, civil service contract, works contract or other contract aimed at performing work.
  

Further eligibility terms for postdoctors

A postdoctor can be considered eligible only if his/her PhD/DLA diploma is dated no later than 01 January 2008. If the postdoctor does not possess the doctoral diploma when applying for funding, but the awarding decision has already been made by the doctoral council of the university, this fact must be evidenced by an official document. Applications may only be submitted by researchers not reaching the age of 40 years by 1 October 2016. This age limit may be raised with the period spent on maternity leave or full-time child-care (but no more than 5 years).

The applicant must undertake to work on the tasks specified in the application in 70% of his/her work time.

One applicant may only submit one application. At the time of submitting the application and, if selected for funding, during the PD_16 funding period the applicant is allowed to be the leader or participant in a researcher-initiated research project (funded under the former OTKA-K/NK/NF/NN or K_16 type schemes) or the leader of a project funded under a postdoctoral call providing only research funding (former OTKA, PD1 type schemes).

Eligible objectives and actions

The postdoc call is not bound by any thematic priority and is not restricted to any area of science. Applications can relate to any kind of discovery research, if otherwise the application meets the conditions laid down in the call.

The full implementation of actions specified in the project plan developed on the basis of the research and work plan outlined in the postdoc application and submitted to the NRDI Office is eligible for funding.

From 2016 the postdoc call only funds wage-like payments to the postdoctor and the related employer contributions, so the funded postdoctors can only apply for and win funding for independent research projects in this year in the framework of the call for researcher-initiated thematic applications (K_17) or the call for researcher-initiated thematic applications implemented in international cooperation (NN_16).

Available budget

In order to achieve the objectives of the call the NRDI Office has earmarked a total budget of HUF 1.8 billion from the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund (hereinafter: “NRDI Fund”) for the 2016–2019 period in line with the Act on the Central Budget and with regard to the programme strategy of the NRDI Fund. From this amount HUF 0.8 billion can be disbursed in 2016.

Funding amount and eligible expenditure

The maximum amount of funding is HUF 15.2658 million per project for a period of up to 36 months. Maximum funding intensity is 100%, so no own resources are necessary for implementing the project.

Costs other than the personal remuneration payable to the postdoctor (hereinafter: “wage”) and related taxes payable by the employer are not eligible. The eligible amount of wage is HUF 330,000 per month.

Duration of the project

Funded projects shall be implemented within 36 months from project launch. Projects shall commence between 01 October 2016 and 31 December 2016.

Submission of project proposals

Applications can be submitted electronically through the Online Application Portal of the NRDI Office by 17:00 CET on 18 April 2016. The submission is successful if the application was finalised electronically by the researcher and approved by the host institution before this deadline, and if the hard copies of the application was received by the customer service of the NRDI Office via regular mail, postmarked no later than 25 April 2016:

National Research, Development and Innovation Office
1077 Budapest, Kéthly Anna tér 1. 2. emelet

The code of the call indicated on the title page of the call notice (PD_16) and the six-digit identification code of the application generated by the EPR system have to be written on the submitted package: -

Please note that the hard copies of the application cannot be submitted in person.

All applications must be submitted in English irrespective of the field of science. In certain cases applicants may be exempted from the requirement of submission in English if the NRDI Office has given its prior consent — upon a request to this effect submitted electronically by 30 March 2016 — to the submission of the application in Hungarian with reference to the fact that, according to the reasons provided by the applicant, the research project can only be properly assessed by Hungarian experts.