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R&D Projects

Call for Proposals for Scientific Research and Technological Development Projects in all Scientific Domains — 2010

Explanatory Note

As a consequence of questions concerning the global budget of the 2010 Call, we clarify that the ERDF component refered to in the Announcement will not fully cover the execution of projects co-funded in the COMPETE framework (those with the Main Contractor in Convergence Regions), the remaining funding being fully met through national funds.

Aditionally we clarify that the planned global funding for this Call is of the same order of magnitude as the one from the previous 2009 analogous Call.

January 7th, 2011

Important milestones

Applications since
30/12/2010
Submit application before
24/02/2011, 5pm
Submit statement of commitment by
11/03/2011, 5pm
Publication of results
It started on 5/9/2011 via https://sig.fct.pt/fctsig/.

Evaluation panels

Announcement

Objectives and Priorities

The Portuguese government’s science and technology policy considers growth, reinforcement and consolidation of the Sistema Científico e Tecnológico Nacional (SCTN) to be a national priority in order to make the system more competitive, both within the country and internationally, and to facilitate articulation between centers of knowledge and business. In this framework, fostering and strengthening the capabilities of scientific and technological institutions by enabling research teams at these institutions to participate in scientific research and technological development (SR&TD) projects in all scientific fields is deemed particularly important.

Recipient Entities

Research teams from the following entities, either individually or jointly, may apply:

  1. Institutions of higher education, their Institutes and R&D Centers;
  2. Associate Laboratories;
  3. State Laboratories;
  4. Private, not-for-profit organizations whose principal object is science and technology activities;
  5. Companies, as long as they are integrated in projects led by public or private not-for-profit R&D organizations;
  6. Other public and private not-for profit organizations which carry out or participate in scientific research activities.

Regional Scope and Funding

Regional Scope

The region to which the projects belong is determined by the NUTS II Region where the Proposing Organizations and participants are located.

Funding

Projects in which the Proposing Organization is located in the NUTS Regions of Lisbon, or in the Algarve, or in the Autonomous Regions are fully financed through national funding from the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior (MCTES).

Projects in which the Proposing Organization is located in the NUTS II Convergence Objective Regions (North, Central and Alentejo) are co-funded with funds from the Operational Programme Thematic Factors of Competitiveness. In these cases, any Proposing Organizations located outside the Convergence Objective regions are financed by Portuguese funds through MCTES.

Funding from the Operational Programme Thematic Factors of Competitiveness shall take the form of non-reimbursable funding in the amount of 70% of eligible project expenses, the remainder funding component being met through national funds, or up to 50% in the case of companies, taking into consideration, in this latter case, that funding will be granted under the de minimis funding framework and only fundamental and applied research activities will be supported, the remaining component, up to the 50% limit, being supported through national funds. Companies located outside the Convergence Regions shall be funded up to 50% through national funds.

The maximum funding per project shall be 200,000€.

Budgetary Appropriation

The FEDER budgetary appropriation designated for this call for proposals as part of the Operational Programme Thematic Factors of Competitiveness is 6.5 million €.

Application submission

Applications must be submitted to FCT, using English for the main components of the proposal, starting December 30th 2010 and before 5pm (Lisbon time) February 24th 2011, in the appropriate electronic web application through

https://concursos.fct.pt/projectos/

It is recommended to follow the Guide for Application Submission available at

http://www.fct.pt/apoios/projectos/concursos/2010/docs/guiao_en.pdf

as well as the Regulations mentioned in this Announcement.

Projects, whose Principal Investigators or team members exceed 100% dedication to projects funded by FCT, will not allowed to be funded.

No application will be accepted where the Principal Investigator has less 35% dedication to the project or some team member has less than 15% dedication.

The same Principal Investigator can not submit the same project to more than one scientific area.

No project will be accepted in which the Principal Investigator is in a situation of unjustified noncompliance with the regulatory requirements with respect to submission of Scientific reports form previous completed projects.

No project will be accepted in which the Main Contractor institution is in a situation of unjustified noncompliance with the regulatory requirements with respect to submission of Financial reports or return of unused balances from previous projects with the same Principal Investigator.

Projects still under review in other calls are not admissible in this call.

The maximum duration of the projects to be funded shall be three years.

Selection method of projects to be funded

The evaluation shall be done by international panels of independent reviewers, to be set up for each scientific area.

The selection method and ranking of projects is based on a Project Merit Indicator using the following criteria, which are described in greater detail in the Regulations Governing Access to Funding for Scientific Research and Technological Development Projects:

  1. Scientific merit and innovative nature of the project from an international viewpoint,
  2. Scientific merit of the research team,
  3. Feasibility of the plan of work and reasonableness of the budget,
  4. Contribution to increasing the body of knowledge and competence of the Portuguese National Science and Technology System (expected effects and results).

For the purpose of selection and decision-making regarding funding, projects shall be ranked by score obtained in the review process in decreasing order.

Publication and further Information

This Announcement and other pertinent items and information, in particular the Regulamento de Acesso a Financiamento de Projectos de Investigação Científica e Desenvolvimento Tecnológico-2010 and the Regulamento de Execução do Sistema de Apoio a Entidades do Sistema Científico e Tecnológico Nacional (SAESCTN), are available on the websites of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia and of the Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade.

Information regarding the contents of the application form may be requested by e-mail from concursoprojectos2010@fct.pt. For information regarding questions related to the technical aspects of the website, please contact the webmaster by e-mail at webmaster@fct.pt.

December 29th, 2010

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