National Research Foundation has opened accepting applications for the first competition – the project can be submitted before June 15

The acceptance of applications for the first competition of scientific and scientific-technical projects of the National Research Foundation – “Science for the safety of man and society” has begun. The opportunity to submit projects was opened today, May 15, 2020, on the Fund’s website.

The deadline for accepting applications is June 15, 2020 (23:59 Kyiv time). Examination and disclosure of results – until August 7.

“We will conduct this competition completely online. To go to it, the project’s supervisor and all the executors need to pre-register on the Foundation’s website. Then one of them must fill out an application online and add several documents in pdf-format. No mountains of paper “in folders with ties“ you don’t need to bring or send by mail”, – explained the head of the Fund Leonid Yatsenko.

The total budget of the competition for 2020 is UAH 100 million. The maximum amount of project financing:

• with a completion date of 2020 – up to UAH 5 million;
• with a deadline of 2020-2021. – up to UAH 10 million.

The competition is collective. Its participants can be scientific groups, which include scientists from both one and various scientific institutions. One scientist can be represented in a maximum of 2 applications submitted for the competition, and be a leader in only one of them.

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

Detailed tender conditions, project requirements and document forms can be found in the official announcement.

The next step will be the formation today, May 15, of the competition commission. It will include recognized scientists proposed by each section of the scientific council of the Foundation (at least 7 from the section).

After the acceptance of applications, the commission will check them for compliance with the criteria. In case of compliance, transfer to experts for consideration – there will be at least 3 of them for each project, including foreign experts. Each expert must inform the commission about the absence of a conflict of interest with the authors of the project or declare self-rejection.

Evaluation of the project will take place on a 5-point scale on 4 aspects:

• quality of the planned study (weight coefficient 0.2)
• significance of the project for the further development of science/technology/technology/society (weight coefficient 0.3)
• quality and realism of the proposed project implementation plan (weight coefficient 0.3)
• scientific potential of the project performers (weight coefficient 0.2).

The score for each aspect is defined as the weighted average score for several separate criteria. The final grade for a project is calculated as the weighted average of grade estimates. For convenience, the score obtained is converted to points by multiplying by 20. Therefore, the maximum score that a project can receive is 100 points.

Based on the results of the examination, the competition commission will form a rating list of projects and provide proposals on the winners and the amount of funding for their work. The final results will be approved by the Scientific Council of the National Fund for Science, after which they will be published on the Foundation’s website.

“That is, the competition will be held in the clearest and transparent rules and procedures”, – said Leonid Yatsenko.

Source: МESU