József Pálinkás, President of the NRDI Office, said about the decision: “With the Frontline programme providing support to principal investigators and their research groups belonging to the top 10% of their field of research, a new Hungarian programme of excellence is launched that allows the most outstanding ones to be supplied with funds remarkable even by European standards. Applications covered all fields of sciences and were submitted by researchers in their most dynamic and creative career stages with internationally recognised achievements and impact, being the pioneers of their discipline and playing a strategic role in enabling Hungary to catch up with developed countries. Based on their research plans, the 12 principal investigators now awarded have real chances to achieve world-class results in Hungarian research institutions in the coming five years.”
Detailed description of researchers and their projects winning grants from the Frontline programme
45 project proposals were submitted, with funding requests of HUF 11.5 billion (nearly EUR 38 million) in total. 80% of the applications (both in terms of quantity and the requested funding) were submitted from the fields of mathematics, physics, chemical and engineering sciences, medical and biological sciences. Remaining applications are equally split between humanities/social sciences and agricultural/ecological/environmental/earth sciences.
Funding decisions were made in a multi-stage assessment process based on anonymous peer reviews and panel evaluation, supplemented with presentations by the applicants. Firstly, each project proposal was evaluated by four anonymous experts, amongst them at least one foreigner, invited by the NRDI Office upon the proposal of the disciplinary panels. Based on the peer reviews, an expert group proposed by the disciplinary panels evaluated the project proposals one by one against the selection criteria set out in the call for proposals, and invited twenty shortlisted applicants to present their project proposals in person. After the project presentations the expert group made a proposal for the decision.
The “Frontline” call is open to basic research projects without thematic restrictions provided that the applicant’s professional CV and research plan meet the requirements set out in the call. For the period 2018–2022 a total budget of HUF 3 billion (EUR 10 million) is available for the scheme, of which HUF 600 million (nearly EUR 2 million) will be disbursed in 2018. After the expiry of the five-year period current winners may only win further funding in an open competition with applicants belonging to the forefront at that point of time.
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| Proportion of proposals submitted to the Frontline excellence programme by fields of science |
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| Proportion of funding requests of proposals submitted to the Frontline excellence programme by fields of science |
To promote research, development and innovation, the NRDI Office has elaborated a coordinated system of calls. Within this portfolio the NRDI Office has established a comprehensive and interconnected set of calls to foster the domestic funding system of discovery research ranging from the promotion of researchers just about to start their career to the support of independent research groups. In addition to calls open to the wider researcher community there are excellence programmes in place to enhance the competitiveness of cutting-edge research projects.
