Parliamentary state secretary and deputy minister Tamás Schanda pointed out: the National Research, Development and Innovation (NRDI) Office will announce the new TKP2020 call for proposals on 5 June 2020 Friday, and will notify all affected institutions. “We will not allow the extraordinary situation caused by the coronavirus to adversely affect promising projects started in higher education and other research centres,” the deputy minister stressed.

The integrated excellence programme will have two sub-programmes this year. The sub-programme “Institutional Excellence” will provide support to the thematic areas of institutional development plans submitted in accordance with the Higher Education Act, similarly to the former Excellence Programme for Higher Education Institutions (FIKP). The other sub-programme, called “National Challenges”, on the other hand, will support TKP scientific re-search projects that address global challenges and fit with Government priorities. Dr. István Szabó, vice president for scientific and international affairs of the NRDI Office explained: “In order to improve the efficiency of the application system and further rationalize processes, we have eased the application procedure to reduce the administrative burden on applicants. Also, faster assessment of proposals will ensure that the institutions get the funding as soon as possible.”

The combined budget of the two TKP2020 sub-programmes for the next two years is around HUF 44.3 billion, of which HUF 18 billion will be disbursed in 2020. The duration of funded projects will be 1 year in the “Institutional Excellence” sub-programme (i.e. the last year’s fund-ing for FIKP areas started in 2018), and 2 years in the “National Challenges” sub-programme (i.e. if former TKP areas are continued).

Budapest, 04 June 2020