On 15th December 2021, the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic announced the second public competition to support applied research, experimental development and Innovation the National Centres of Competence (NCK). It aims at supporting and strengthening long-term cooperation between the research and application spheres and strengthening the institutional base of applied research.

For the project proposal to be approved by the MUNI Strategic Research Projects Council, a short presentation must be sent to duskova@rect.muni.cz before 14th March 2021. In the presentation it is important to thoroughly describe the funding, the participants involved and assess the risks of the project. The actual approval will take place without the presence of the proposers.

The aim of the public competition and the programme itself is:

• increasing the efficiency and quality of applied research and technology transfer in key fields with growth prospects;
• increasing the competitiveness of enterprises;
• strengthening the excellence and application relevance of research organisations.

The instrument for achieving this objective will be supported project proposals, aiming at building a sufficiently stable and long-term base of applied research (in the form of established national centres of competence), through the concentration of research capacities and the setting of a strong orientation towards the application of their research results in practice.

The parameters of the NCC programme can be found here.