Results of the Call IC&DT Projects in all scientific fields

FCT today announced the results of the Call for IC&DT Projects in all scientific domains to all applicants. 551 projects were selected for funding, representing an investment of 74.9 million euros supported by FCT's national funding budget. The list of projects recommended for funding and the summary of the results of the Call are available here.

This Call, with a budget of 75 million euros, supports two types of projects:

• Scientific research and technological development projects (IC&DT), with a duration of 36 months and maximum funding per project of 250,000 euros, with an allocation of 60 million euros;
• Exploratory research projects (PeX), with a duration of 18 months and maximum funding per project of 50,000 euros, with an allocation of 15 million euros.

The 246 IC&DT projects recommended for funding are distributed among the following scientific domains: Medical and Health Sciences - 17.9%, Engineering Sciences and Technologies - 24.8%, Natural Sciences - 18.3%, Social Sciences - 11.8%, Exact Sciences - 11.8%, Agricultural Sciences - 8.9% and Humanities - 6.5%.

The 305 PeX projects recommended for funding are distributed among the following scientific fields: Medical and Health Sciences - 25.9%, Engineering Sciences and Technologies - 14.1%, Natural Sciences - 18.7%, Social Sciences - 13.1%, Exact Sciences - 13.8%, Agricultural Sciences - 6.2% and Humanities - 8.2%.

The principal investigators leading the funded projects are mostly women, accounting for 55.2% of the total, and 12.2% are foreign researchers, of 22 nationalities, working in research centers in Portugal and leading 67 of the selected projects.

Applications ran from January 28th to March 10th of this year. 4882 applications were submitted, of which 4870 were accepted for evaluation, in accordance with the terms of Notice of the Call Call. After evaluation, only 3371 applications (69.2% of the applications evaluated) received the minimum score that allowed them to be eligible for funding. The Call 's success rate as a % of the total number of applications eligible for funding was 8.7% for IC&DT projects and 56.7% for exploratory projects.

The applications were assessed by 33 evaluation panels in different scientific areas, with 577 foreign external evaluators from 34 nationalities taking part in the evaluation, 50.6% of whom were women. Each proposal was evaluated and ranked according to the scientific merit and innovative nature of the project, the scientific merit of the research team, the feasibility of the work program and the contribution to the accumulation of knowledge and skills. In each panel, the proposals were ranked and the selection was made in such a way that the success rate was similar in all the evaluation panels in terms of the volume of eligible funding requested.

The evaluation process lasted 4.7 months between the deadline for submitting applications and the communication of provisional results. These 551 new projects are in addition to the 2,274 IC&DT projects currently underway and funded by the FCT.

The Call for IC&DT projects in all scientific areas is held annually and is part of the FCT's major structuring Calls , the timetable for which is established until 2022 and published on the website.