The first competitions of the National Research Fund will start in May, the priorities are the solution of security problems, in particular COVID-19, and the support of leading and young scientists

The National Research Fund (NRF) will announce a competition of scientific and technical projects “Science for the safety of man and society” from May 12 and tentatively till May 18 – a competition “Support for research by leading and young scientists“. The Scientific Council made the corresponding decision during the online meeting on April 27-30, 2020.

The purpose of the competition “Science for the safety of man and society” is to support the best science projects to solve the pressing problems of human and society safety in Ukraine. In particular, in areas of research related to:

• biosafety of man and society;
• biomedicines;
• ecology;
• cybernetic and information security;
• response to economic, social, humanitarian challenges in natural and man-made emergencies, in particular, biomedical, economic, social, psychological, humanitarian and cultural consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and ways to overcome them.

The total funding for the 2020 contest is UAH 100 million.

Two types of projects are envisaged: with a deadline in 2020 and a deadline in 2020-2021. The maximum amount of project financing for 1 year – UAH 5 million.

The supervisor and at least one executor of the project must have a scientific degree, scientific publications in periodicals indexed by Scopus and/or WoS and/or scientific monographs (for social sciences) in the corresponding field of knowledge.

In the second competition – “Support for research by leading and young scientists” – teams that will consist of leading and young Ukrainian scientists working at the world level will be able to receive support.

The competition is industry-wide (bottom-up) with a total funding of 2020 – UAH 150 million.

Projects will be:

• with a deadline of 2020-2021 and total funding of UAH 10 million;
• with a deadline of 2020-2022 and total funding of UAH 15 million.

The team of authors of the project is no more than 7 researchers, while at least half should be young scientists (with names). In addition, it is possible to attract up to 3 assistants from among young scientists and students to the project – without indicating names.

The competition sets stringent conditions for the scientific production of the project manager. So, only a scientist can be a project manager from mathematical, natural, technical, biological, agricultural and medical, has a scientific degree and is the author (or co-author) or at least 5 publications for 2015-2020, or at least 10 publications for 2010 -2020 in periodicals of the first (Q1) and second (Q2) quartiles according to the classification of Journal Citation Reports or Scimago.

A project manager in the humanities, social, economic, legal sciences may be a scientist, has:

• academic degree;
• scientific publications in professional periodicals indexed by Scopus and WoS, or is the author of a scientific monograph (co-author of a collective monograph) issued (or prepared for publication and announced by a publishing house) in a foreign language outside Ukraine, except for the CIS countries;
• the author (co-author) of a scientific monograph published over the past 5 years in Ukraine, which (or) received an award (prize, award) of national or international competitions, (or) received at least two positive reviews published in international professional scientific periodicals.

“The scientific council of the foundation, which includes 30 leading Ukrainian scientists, has decided to launch the first two competitions in May. The conditions of the competitions are aimed, on the one hand, to support those areas of our science that are capable of quickly responding to serious security challenges of Ukraine (in particular, the COVID-19 pandemic), and on the other, support our best scientists and their young students”, – said Leonid Yatsenko, the chairman of the NRF.

The official announcements of the competitions will be published on the NRF website on 12 and (tentatively) on May 18. They will contain detailed information about the requirements for participants, conditions, time and place of the meeting, a list of documents and the way they are presented, the amount of funding and duration of projects, selection and evaluation criteria, etc.

“We are ready for the first competition, it will take place exclusively online. Projects are accepted through a special software module on the fund’s website. A pool of experts has already been formed for the examination, both Ukrainian and foreign. Now there are more than one thousand and six hundred of them, the selection of experts will continue, specifically for the competition announced”, – explained Boris Sorochinskiy, Executive Director of the Fund.

We remind you that despite the budget sequestration, this year the fund managed to save almost UAH 300 million.

“These funds should be received by the best Ukrainian scientists in order to be able to conduct world-class research in Ukraine. We are moving away from the practice of financing “little by little”: public resources should be concentrated on supporting unique potential and priority research. And NFD should become an effective tool for this”, – said Yury Polyukhovich, First Deputy Minister of Education and Science.

Information: The National Research Fund was established on July 4, 2018. One of its important tasks is to provide grant support for research and development of Ukrainian scientists despite their departmental subordination. Grants can be individual, collective or institutional. Grant support is also expected:

• development of the material and technical base of research and development of a high level;
• development of scientific cooperation, in particular, scientific mobility, organization, holding and participation in conferences, symposia, joint research of universities and scientific institutions and the like;
• scientific internship of scientists, graduate students and doctoral students, including abroad;
• creation, operation and development of research infrastructure;
• transfer of knowledge and its dissemination;
• projects of young scientists;
• activities aimed at attracting young people to scientific and scientific-technical activities;
• popularize of science.

NRF provides all grants on a competitive basis. All projects must undergo an independent examination, in particular, with the involvement of foreign experts.

Source: МESU