At the end of July, FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia announced the results of the 2021 Call for Scientific Research and Technological Development (SR&TD) Projects in all scientific domains. In total, 551 projects were selected for funding, representing an investment of €74.9 million, supported by FCT’s national funds. More than 50 projects have a link to Técnico.

The call for applications took place from 28th January to 10th March 2021. Two types of projects were funded. On the one hand, Scientific Research and Technological Development projects (SR&TD projects) with a duration of 36 months and maximum funding per project of €250 000. The total allocation for SR&TD projects is €60 million. On the other hand, Exploratory Research Projects (PeX projects) with a duration of 18 months and maximum funding per project of €50 000 euros. The total allocation for PeX projects is €15 million.

The Association of Instituto Superior Técnico for Research and Development (IST-ID) and several IST Research Centres are leading 42 projects selected for funding, and participate in another 10. Of these 52 projects selected for funding, 33 are SR&TD projects and 19 are PeX projects.

Overall, 246 SR&TD projects and 305 PeX projects were selected for funding, both in various scientific domains. 24.8% of the SR&TD projects recommended for funding are related to engineering sciences, whereas PeX projects is 14.1%.

A total of 4882 applications were submitted, of which 3371 were pre-selected. “Only 3371 applications (69.2% of the applications evaluated) had the minimum classification eligible for funding”, FCT said in a statement. According to FCT “the success rate of the call, in terms of percentage of the total eligible applications for funding, was 8.7% for SR&TD projects and 56.7% for PeX projects”.

The list with the results of the 2021 Call for SR&TD projects in all Scientific Domains is available on FCT website.