The call titled “Funding to micro and small enterprises for innovation activities (2018-1.1.1-MKI)” supports the development, market entry and intellectual property protection of quickly marketable, innovative products, services and procedures in the Central Hungary region. Altogether 276 project proposals were submitted to the call by the 12 March 2018 deadline with a total funding request of HUF 20 billion (EUR 65.5 million). Total cost of all submitted project proposals nearly reached HUF 28.5 billion (EUR 93.5 million).

The Competitiveness and excellence cooperations (2018-1.3.1-VKE) call, which was announced with a total budget of HUF 26 billion (EUR 85 million) with submission deadline 28 February, offered HUF 0.5 to 1.5 billion (EUR 1.6 to 4.9 million) funding to projects facilitating long-term sustainable cooperation relationships of strategic importance between Hungarian businesses and research and knowledge-dissemination organisations resulting in scientific achievements which address industrial needs and can be commercially utilised. Submitted to this call, 48 project proposals requested altogether HUF 45 billion (EUR 147.5 million).

The National Excellence Programme (2018.1.2.1-NKP) call was also open until the end of February and was broken down to five thematic sub-programmes: ELI-related laser research, AI applications, secure society, clean drinking water and protein science. The budget was HUF 1 billion (EUR 3.2 million) for each sub-programme, that is, HUF 5 billion (EUR 16.4 million) for the entire programme, while the total funding request exceeded HUF 6.2 billion (EUR 20.3 million).

After the formal assessment, peer review and panel evaluation of the project proposals, funding decisions are expected to be announced in June and July as scheduled in the evaluation timeline published on the website.