DEFENSE + SCIENCE: Call for Exploratory Projects 2025

National defense faces complex challenges that require innovative and strategic approaches to promote Portuguese society’s understanding of the Armed Forces, creating more and better mechanisms for interaction, as well as enhancing and integrating Military Higher Education and military research centers. This involves investing in the quality of initial and continuous training, promoting advanced education, and stimulating scientific employment.

Fundamental objectives for achieving this purpose include investing in the strengthening of national scientific and technological capacities; stimulating the defense economy through active coordination among companies, higher education institutions, research centers, and the Armed Forces; promoting research, development, and innovation in key areas essential to the Armed Forces’ operational effectiveness; and fostering thematic and multidisciplinary research that helps simultaneously address major societal challenges in the fields of security and defense, which is necessary for consolidating areas of knowledge relevant to National Defense.

Applications, with a maximum duration of 18 months, must obligatorily include two or more beneficiaries (with allocated funding), including at least one non-business entity from the R&I system and one entity overseen by the government member responsible for the national defense sector.

The following are considered non-business entities within the R&I system:

1. Higher education institutions, their institutes, and R&D units;
2. State Laboratories, Associated or international laboratories based in Portugal;
3. Private non-profit institutions whose main purpose is R&D activities, including Collaborative Laboratories (CoLab) and Technology and Innovation Centers (CTI);
4. Other public and private non-profit institutions that develop or participate in scientific research activities.

The possible involvement of companies or foreign institutions does not grant them the status of funding beneficiaries.

Applications must be submitted in English, from 30 December 2025 until 24 February 2026 at 17:00 Lisbon time, using a specific electronic form and submitted through the myFCT platform.

Members of the project research team must have their curricula vitae completed on the CIÊNCIAVITAE platform and linked to the application.

The Proposing Institution’s Declaration of Commitment will be available on the myFCT platform for approval by the institution’s highest authority, or by a delegated representative, after the application submission deadline and until 10 March 2026 at 17:00 Lisbon time.

The evaluation of applications will be carried out by a panel of experts affiliated with national and foreign institutions, independent, and of recognized merit and integrity, to be appointed by FCT, I.P and IDN. The methodology for selecting and ranking applications is based on the Project Merit (PM) indicator, which relies on the following evaluation criteria:

A. Scientific quality and innovative character of the project, from an international perspective and within one or more of the thematic areas promoted in this call (40%);

B. Scientific merit of the Principal Investigator (PI) and the research team (35%);

C. Feasibility of the work program (including planning) and proposed performance indicators, as well as budget reasonableness, and relevance and impact on the non-business entity/entities overseen by the government member responsible for national defense, and/or in the domain of the Portuguese Armed Forces’ activities or in knowledge areas relevant to National Defense (25%).

The project merit is calculated as:

MP = 0,40A + 0,35B + 0,25C ​​​​​​​

Projects are fully funded by national funds through the budget of the General Secretariat of the Ministry of National Defense (SGMDN), transferred to FCT, in accordance with the protocol signed between the two entities. The budget allocation for this call is €1,200,000.

The maximum funding per project is €50,000.

The support granted under this notice is non-reimbursable, applying the simplified cost option in the form of a lump sum. The contribution is paid against the presentation of evidence and results demonstrating the effective completion of the approved project according to the contractual terms.

The initial project advance is 75% of the approved funding. The remaining amount, up to the approved funding for each project, will be paid after the completion of the scientific and financial components of the project, through final reimbursement.

For this call, indirect costs are a fixed rate of 25% of all estimated eligible direct costs. Expenses for the adaptation of buildings and facilities are limited to a maximum of 10% of the total eligible project expenses.

The Call is subject to this Announcement for submission of Proposals, by FCT Projects Regulation, published in Regulation No. 999/2016, in its current wording, i.e., amended and republished by Regulation no. 5/2024 and corrected by the Declaration of Rectification no. 366/2024/2, published in the Diário da República, 2nd series, no. 100, of May 23, 2024, and by other applicable national and community legislation.

Before submitting a proposal, applicants are advised to read the documents of the call, all available at the call’s webpage.

For information related to this call, please contact concursoprojetos@fct.pt.

None of the information published on this webpage overrides the official Announcement for Submission of Proposals.