Dear applicants,
The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) has extended the submission deadline for the project proposals until 8 April 2020.
For the cooperation within CEUS initiative, the submission deadline for project proposals when GACR is in the role of Lead Agency is newly 4 May 2020.
Thank you for your understanding.
In the context of the coronavirus epidemic in the Czech Republic, the scientific community warns that the announcement of a state of emergency disrupts the preparation of project proposals in the currently announced public tenders.
In an effort to respond to the current state of emergency and to accommodate as much as possible all researchers, the GACR Presidium has decided to cancel public tenders in research, development and innovation to support the EXPRO, JUNIOR STAR, standard and international bilateral projects announced by the Czech Science Foundation on 21 February 2020 in the Business Register (with the beginning of the competition period on February 22, 2020 and the end of the competition period on April 7, 2020) with the anticipated start of the implementation from January 1, 2021 and at the same time GA CR Presidium further decided on the immediate re-announcement of all these tenders in research, development and innovation from today with the expected implementation to begin on January 1, 2021.
The conditions of the newly announced public tenders in research, development and innovation will be identical to the conditions of the cancelled public tenders. By cancelling and re-announcing the tenders, the Czech Science Foundation meets the request of a large part of the scientific community for an extension to the period for submitting project proposals until 4 May 2020. This would otherwise not be possible within the current legal framework of the Act on Support of Research, Development and Innovation.
After careful consideration and consultation with representatives of research organizations, the GACR Presidium chooses this solution and these terms. This will ensure the extension of the submission period whilst keeping to the original deadlines for the evaluation (i.e. 2 November 2020 for the EXPRO and JUNIOR STAR projects and 1 December 2020 for standard grant projects and international bilateral projects).
Neither the period of uncertainty for organizations and research teams nor the beginning of project implementation will need to be extended to the following year. The Czech Science Foundation thus acts with maximum effort to maintain continuity of basic research funding as well as to provide more time for project proposal preparation to all applicants.
The GACR Presidium is aware of the fact, that it will only be possible to fulfil these commitments with the maximum effort of both evaluators and the GA CR Office staff and believes that this decision will be accepted by the scientific community with understanding.
Thank you for your understanding.
On 27 November 2019, GACR President signed a memorandum of understanding with the Swiss National Science Foundation on bilateral cooperation on the Lead Agency principle. This new cooperation enables scientists from the Czech Republic to carry out scientific projects in basic research with new foreign partners. The first call is announced now with the SNSF in the role of a Lead Agency. Projects duration is maximum 3 years.
Detailed rules for submitting project proposals under the new LA cooperation will be published at the beginning of 2020.
On Monday 17 June 2019, the highest representatives of GACR, FWF (Austria), NCN (Poland) and ARRS (Slovenia) solemnly signed the “CEUS – Central European Science Partnership” Lead Agency Agreement: Memorandum of Understanding on the unilateral administration and mutual recognition of evaluation procedures. This new cooperation enables scientists from the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland and Slovenia to carry out scientific projects with new foreign partners based on the Lead Agency evaluation, which is among the increasingly preferred forms of cooperation between foreign agencies supporting basic research due to reduction of administrative burden. Within the CEUS initiative supporting basic research in the Central European region, scientists will be enabled to submit bilateral and also trilateral project proposals on the LA principle.
In brief:
On Monday 17 June 2019, the top representatives of GACR, FWF (Austria), NCN (Poland), ARRS (Slovenia) signed the ‘’CEUS – Central European Science Partnership” Lead Agency Agreement: Memorandum of Understanding on the unilateral administration and mutual recognition of evaluation procedures”. This new collaboration will enable scientists from the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland and Slovenia to carry out scientific projects with new foreign partners based on the Lead Agency evaluation, which belongs to the most preferred forms of cooperation among foreign agencies supporting basic research in reducing administrative burdens. As part of the CEUS Initiative to support basic research in the Central European Region, researchers will now be able to submit bilateral and trilateral LA based project proposals.
GACR currently plans to announce the first call within this new initiative next year. At the end of June this year, The Research, Development and Innovation Council approved a new material enabling the agency to launch multilateral projects based on the Lead Agency principle. At this point, the material will be submitted to the Czech government for approval.
On 5 November 2018, GACR President signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). As a result of this agreement, Czech scientists have the opportunity to expand their basic research activities abroad. In case of this new cooperation, project proposals were submitted for the first time in 2019. This cooperation is based on bilateral level with project duration of three years.
On Monday 15 October 2018, GACR President Dr. Alice Valkárová met with the Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Taiwan (MOST) Yu-Han Tsou accompanied by a delegation of representatives from the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC) and the National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) to discuss the possibilities for developing bilateral cooperation between the two agencies.
On 14 May 2018, GACR President signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) in Moscow. As a result of this Memorandum, Czech scientists have the opportunity to expand their basic research activities abroad. The first call was announced this year and is based on bilateral cooperation with project duration of three years.
On 4 and 5 April 2018, the working group with provisional name – Central Europe Initiative (CEI) met in Prague to discuss the future possibilities of cooperation on the principle of Multilateral Lead Agency between involved national grant agencies.
The Prague meeting followed the Ljubljana and the Vienna meetings. Heads of individual research grant agencies together with their representatives and members from international divisions participated in the discussions.
A joint agreement was reached that the first call will start with bilateral and trilateral projects in basic research on the bottom up principle. The most crucial task for all involved agencies will be harmonizing legal regulations, which the agencies abide by and which differ in each country.
The founding members of this initiative apart from the Czech Republic (Czech Science Foundation) are Poland (National Science Centre), Slovenia (Slovenian Research Agency), Austria (FWF Der Wissenschaftsfonds) and Hungary (National Research, Development and Innovation Office). Observers of the negotiations were representatives from Slovakia (Agentúra na podporu výskumu a vývoja), Croatia (Croatian Science Foundation) and Switzerland (Swiss National Science Foundation), who also represented Science Europe as an observer.
