Call for R&D Projects

The scientific evaluation process of the projects submitted to the Call for R&D projects in all fields (Notice no. 02/SAICT/2017) is now complete. The approximately 4,600 applications were evaluated by more than 400 evaluators of recognized international merit, distributed among 33 evaluation panels, and are now being allocated to the different sources of funding, according to their framework in Portugal2020. The communication of results by the Operational Programs of Portugal2020 and by FCT is being articulated in a context of significant reinforcement of the Call's allocation, which makes the process particularly demanding. As such, the communication that began on February 9 will be carried out in phases, according to the projects' framework in each of the funding sources. 

As stipulated in the Call's Notice of the Call Call, the best projects from each panel will be co-financed by EU funds, when eligible for such funding, or financed solely by national funds, in cases where there is no framework in Portugal 2020. If the allocation of a regional operational program is insufficient to finance projects considered to be of high merit, they may be financed by: i) COMPETE2020 funds, if after analysis they fall within the scope of the National Research and Innovation Strategy for Intelligent Specialization (ENEI), or ii) national funds, if there is no such framework or if they are not eligible for financing by COMPETE2020. In this context, communicating that a project is not funded through the Operational Programs does not necessarily mean that it will not be funded, if the merit of the project so determines. The process of communicating results will only be closed after the final communication from the FCT. 

The Call for projects in all scientific fields is a joint initiative of FCT and the six operational programs of Portugal 2020: COMPETE 2020, Norte 2020, Centro 2020, Lisboa 2020, Alentejo 2020 and CRESC Algarve 2020. Given the high number of applications received and the scientific quality of the projects, FCT and the Operational Programs are making every effort to substantially increase the planned financial envelope of €110M in order to fund as many projects as possible. At the end of the process, FCT will provide information on the overall balance of projects supported.