The call aims to provide funding to talented young researchers (under 40 years of age) who want to establish an independent research group to start their own independent discovery research project. The call is not bound by any thematic priority and is not restricted to any area of science. Applications can relate to any kind of discovery research, if otherwise the application meets the conditions laid down in the call. The call is financed from the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund.

Submission of project proposals

Applications can be submitted electronically through the Online Application Portal of the NRDI Office by 28 February 2017. The submission is successful if the application was finalised electronically by the researcher and approved by the host institution, and if the hard copies of all required documents were received by the customer service of the NRDI Office via regular mail, postmarked no later than 9 March 2017. Applications may not be submitted in person.

All applications must be submitted in English irrespective of the field of science. In certain cases applicants may be exempted from the requirement of submission in English if the NRDI Office has given its prior consent — upon a request to this effect submitted by 13 February 2017 — to the submission of the application in Hungarian with reference to the fact that, according to the reasons provided by the applicant, the research project can only be properly assessed by Hungarian experts.

Who can apply

Researchers (principal researchers) with Hungarian or foreign nationality must apply jointly with the host institution which must be

• a higher education institution, research centre, research institution, budgetary organ or an institution thereof having legal personality if it qualifies as a research organisation;
  
• a business company having at least one full financial year closed, applying double-entry bookkeeping, not belonging to the scope of simplified entrepreneurial tax (EVA) (only non-profit activities are eligible for funding);
  
• a non-profit organisation pursuing research and development as core activity.
  

Throughout the entire implementation period the leading researcher must be a full-time worker of the host institution under an employment contract, civil service contract, works contract or other contract aimed at performing work.

Projects can also be implemented by consortiums.

Further requirements for principal researchers

At the time of application the principal researcher has to hold a doctoral (PhD/DLA) degree or a certificate issued by the university doctoral council, and has to be affiliated to a Hungarian host institution. Applications may only be submitted by researchers not reaching the age of 40 years by 9 March 2017. Upon request, this age limit may be raised with the period spent on maternity leave or full-time child-care.

One applicant may only submit one application as principal researcher and may only assume principal researcher position in maximum two projects funded by the NRDI Office under the thematic applications programme (PD, FK, K, NK, NF, NN type schemes) and one project funded under the researchers with internationally outstanding results programme (KK) at a time. Leaders of FK type projects can apply for funding for a thematic research project in the third year of the funding period at the earliest. The same principal researcher may receive FK funding on a maximum of two occasions.

Eligible objectives and actions

The discovery research activities indicated in the research and work plan, and the actions required to implement the project plan submitted to the NRDI Office are eligible and not bound by any thematic priority or restricted to any field of science.

Available budget

In order to achieve the objectives of the call the NRDI Office has earmarked a total budget of HUF 1.5 billion from the NRDI Fund for the 2017–2020 period in line with the Act on the Central Budget and with regard to the programme strategy of the NRDI Fund. From this amount HUF 0.5 billion can be disbursed in 2017 depending on the programme strategy for 2017. (Due to the composition of the submitted project proposals, the total budget has been modified to HUF 3 billion).

Available funds

Up to HUF 40 million in non-refundable funding million per project. Maximum funding intensity is 100%.

Duration of the project

The maximum implementation period is 48 months from project start (for a period shorter than 48 months, the amount of requested funding has to be reduced on a pro rata basis). Projects shall commence between 1 September 2017 and 1 December 2017.