Announced in March 2018 with a total budget of HUF 750 million (EUR 2.5 million), the call for proposals promotes Hungarian participation in the EUREKA programme while encouraging bilateral cooperation between Germany and Hungary. The submission deadline for German-Hungarian project proposals is 30 May 2018. József Pálinkás, president of the NRDI Office and Georg Schütte, State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research agreed on the joint EUREKA call in June 2017. Previously, Germany only launched similar cooperation programmes with the Czech Republic.

József Pálinkás, president of the NRDI Office pointed out at the event: “EUREKA encourages the involvement of the researcher-developer community, as the topic and terms of cooperation are arranged solely by the participating businesses and research institutions. High-grade, well-founded research projects delivering practically applicable results have made EUREKA a European trademark for high professional quality. The topics of EUREKA projects vary widely but the German-Hungarian call also aims to further increase cooperation between the innovative businesses of the two countries in the fields of ITC, production technology and biotechnology.

Established in 1985 with the aim of promoting industrial and technological research in international cooperation, EUREKA has no central budget, so project costs are covered by the member states through national funding schemes. EUREKA projects are typically aimed at reaching quickly marketable R&D results. Most of the participants are businesses and for-profit institutions. Since its establishment, EUREKA has contributed to the implementation of around 6000 innovation projects with a total budget of EUR 37 billion. Today, EUREKA is one of the most important European networks for industrial research cooperation. Since Hungary’s joining in 1992, altogether 38 joint EUREKA projects have been implemented in German-Hungarian collaboration. Currently, there are four joint German-Hungarian projects in progress.

The event featured the Institute for Computer Science and Control of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; Hepenix Kft, a company dealing with – among other things – technological research and development in the automotive industry; and an EUR 410,000 (HUF 123 million) project focused on industry 4.0 solutions for SMEs, launched with the participation of Karslruhe Institute of Technology. In addition, Hungarians are participating in five on-going EUREKA projects in cooperation with other countries in the fields of ITC, biotechnology, agri-innovation, material and production technology and environmental technologies.

The members of the EUREKA network: the 28 EU Member States, as well as Iceland, Israel, Monaco, Norway, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Turkey, Macedonia and Ukraine. Associated members: South Africa, South Korea and Canada.

• The international EUREKA programme (Presentation in English)
  
• Dr. Ralf Hagedorn: Hungarian-German EUREKA Call 2018 - BMBF National Regulations PDF (348 KB)
  
• Gergely Mészáros: EUREKA in Hungary / The National Funding Programme PDF (418 KB)
  
• EUREKA - A European Network for Innovation and Cooperation PDF (1 931 KB)
  
• Tóth József: INTRO4.0: Introduction Strategies of Industry 4.0 - Methodology and Technology for SMEs PDF (5 786 KB)
  

Budapest, 16 April, 2018