Parliament Allocates Billions to Top Research Projects

Seventy-nine billion forints (about EUR 213 M) is available this year for innovation and research applications under the János Neumann Program, which focuses on linking universities and research institutions with the economy, revealed Ádám Kiss, President of the National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NRDI), at a press conference on the program in Budapest on Thursday.

Balázs Hankó, State Secretary for Innovation and Higher Education, recalled that Parliament adopted the amendments to the law supporting the Neumann János Program last week, which were published in the Hungarian Gazette on Wednesday evening.

“We have set the goal that by 2030, Hungary should be among the top 10 innovators in Europe and among the top 25 in the world,”

he said.

He added that the three priorities of the new program are to link Hungarian economic actors with Hungarian researchers and universities, to ensure that the supported research has a social and economic impact and that this impact is measurable.

Ádám Kiss pointed out that the Neumann János Program will focus on supporting research aimed at digitizing the economy, strengthening healthy living, and the green transition, with HUF 35 billion available for this purpose.

The market effectiveness of innovations will also be helped by the requirement for applicants to generate revenue and patent the innovations that are developed. The new call for applications will shorten the implementation period of projects and will give a crucial role to the ongoing technical support of projects by the newly established National Innovation Agency (NIA).

The President of the NRDI also said that the program strategy will pay particular attention to supporting companies with the potential for rapid growth and significant Hungarian added value, so-called spin-offs, as well as to strengthening industrial property rights protection and successful participation in international tenders.

László Bódis, Deputy State Secretary for Innovation, said that the National Research, Development, and Innovation Fund, the source of this year’s program strategy, consists of two parts:

the Innovation Fund, with a budget of HUF 52 billion (EUR 140 M), and the Research Fund, with a budget of HUF 27 billion (EUR 73 M).

The Innovation Fund includes support for international programs, focal area projects, the Incubator program, the Accelerator and Proof of Concept programs, as well as the Industrial Property Rights scheme.

The Research fund includes the OTKA program, which supports researchers’ careers, the New National Excellence Program, supporting the next generation of researchers, the Cooperative Doctoral Program, and finally the Lifeline program, which supports the attraction of excellent Hungarian and foreign researchers to Hungary.

The calls for proposals will be launched in a phases from the end of July for higher education institutions, research institutes, businesses and individual researchers, as well as research teams.

Via MTI; Featured image: Facebook/Hankó Balázs