The call titled Researcher-initiated research projects (K_17), which was announced with a budget of HUF 7 billion, a significant increase since last year, was open until 17 March 2016 for promising researcher-initiated basic research projects in any field of science without thematic priorities. This year the number of project proposals totalled 1147 marking an 18% increase from last year and a 29% increase compared to 2014. The changes of the funding scheme, initiated by the NRDI Office, received a positive response from the researcher community. The changes, including the increased maximum amount of funding available per project or the modification of budgeting rules, restructured and increased the amount of funding requests. The total demand for funds neared HUF 34 billion which is a 42% increase compared to 2015, and 62% compared to 2014. This year one in every five project proposals was selected for funding from the NRDI Fund.
The decision preparation process followed the methodology applied in previous years: the project proposals were assessed against the criteria indicated in the Application Guidelines, with the involvement of expert panels and specialised scientific councils. Accepting the recommendation of the decision preparation bodies, the President of the NRDI Office agreed on the funding of 219 project proposals with the following distribution between fields of science:

The average age of principal investigators showed only a slight difference between submitted proposals (49 years) and funded proposals (50 years). The share of applicants aged 40 or younger increased by 2.5 compared to previous years (to 22%). This is partly due to the fact that this year the material costs of postdoc type research projects were also funded under the K_16 scheme, as the PD_16 scheme only provided funding to the wage-like costs of postdoctors. Despite this, there were only 34 funded researcher-initiated research projects where the principal investigators were aged 40 or younger. The NRDI Office intends to give even more importance to this assessment aspect in next years’ call.
The lessons drawn from the assessment of K_16 project proposals, that is, the “assessment of the assessments” will be presented by the President of the NRDI Office at an open forum in order to lay the groundwork for next year’s call and further improve the effectiveness of the assessment process.

FUNDED PROJECTS
Funding organisation: NRDI Office
Source: NRDI Fund
Date of decision: 25 July 2016