This year, nearly HUF 80 billion in research and innovation funding is available under the John von Neumann Programme. This includes a HUF 13.8 billion call for projects based on researchers’ own initiatives to promote the professional development, achievements and the international recognition of outstanding representatives of Hungarian scientific life. This year, applications to the OTKA calls announced by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office saw a fourfold increase compared to the available funds. Around 1,400 valid applications were received for the 2023 calls in three categories, with more than half of the applicants being young researchers who had obtained an academic degree within the past 12 years. 41% of winners are under 40, with the youngest one being of 28 years of age. The most senior winner will start their research project at the age of 77.

As in previous years, applications were evaluated in a multi-stage process involving more than 2,000 individual assessors and 33 panels of experts. The scientific significance of the project, its novelty, its expected results and its scientific and social utility played a major role in the evaluation. Another important criterion is the international excellence of the applicant researchers, i.e. their scientific achievements as measured by their previous research performance, number of publications and citations.

Announcing the results, Balázs Hankó, State Secretary for Innovation and Higher Education, said: “The government aims to strengthen the economic, social and intellectual impact of research financed from Hungary’s central budget, to strengthen the supply of domestic researchers and to support internationally benchmarked, performance-driven scientific careers, which is also a key priority of the John von Neumann Programme. OTKA-type funding schemes have traditionally contributed to this.” The State Secretary added: it is good news that the younger generations of researchers are becoming more and more active in the calls. Therefore, the Ministry has added an additional HUF 335 million to the original budget of HUF 13.5 billion to support more early-stage researchers and to put even more emphasis on supporting young researchers in excellence-based research proposals in the upcoming period. The government aims to increase the number of researchers from the current 6,000 per one million Hungarians to 9,000 by the end of the decade.

For more details about the programme, please visit the website of the National Research, Development and Innovation Office.

Budapest, 21 November 2023

Source: Ministry of Culture and Innovation