Eight of our researchers won grants at the OTKA tender
2022-09-26 10:53:47From this year’s basic research tenders, Corvinus will get funds for the examination and algorithm research of sustainability issues, behaviour distortions, employee welfare and artificial intelligence expectations, too. Altogether HUF 256 million will be available to our researchers for the three- or four-year projects.
According to the announcement of the Ministry of Culture and Innovation (KIM) on Tuesday, more than 350 researchers and research groups won grants of HUF 12.7 billion in total for the forthcoming 3 or 4 years, in this year’s basic research tenders. As a result of the call for applications published by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH) for 2022, altogether 1,314 valid applications were submitted in three categories, requiring funds of HUF 46.9 billion in total. From applicants at the beginning of their research careers, 176 projects won support in the categories of the Postdoctoral Excellence Programme and the Young Researcher Excellence Programme, and in total HUF 5.7 billion is available for these programmes. In this category, one researcher of the Corvinus, Petra Renáta Rigó submitted a successful application with the topic of ‘New ways in the research of interior-point algorithms’.
More experienced researchers and research groups headed by them were able to apply for grants in the Research topic tender sub-programme, for the continuation of their successful basic research topic, or for the development of new and promising topics. In this category, 177 new projects may be launched, with a total support of HUF 7 billion. Seven researchers of the Corvinus won support in the following topics:
- Barna Bakó: Behaviour distortions, persuasion and incomplete information The role of information in decision-making
- Tamás Kocsis: Bounce-back effect in space and sustainable welfare
- András Mezősi (in consortium): Integrated development of the stock of residential buildings and electricity models and the analysis of decarbonisation scenarios
- László Szabó: How to make household energy consumption carbon-neutral in Hungary without carbon pricing?
- Álmos Telegdy: Compatibility of Hungarian enterprises and the welfare of employees: the role of connections between the management and the employees
- József Tóth: Climate change adaptation in agriculture and circular economy behaviour
- Lilla Mária Vicsek: Sociology of AI expectations: visions about the social and labour market role of artificial intelligence
In addition, the OTKA programme includes grants that can be applied for projects implemented in international – bilateral Hungarian-Austrian and Hungarian-Slovenian – research cooperation. According to the notice, the results will be announced in the near future, after the decision of the co-financing foreign partner institution, providing additional HUF 800 million to support the Hungarian research community.
According to the summary, the number of applications for the OTKA programmes was almost four times higher than the available places. Within that, the younger and future generation of researchers are more and more active, as the number of postdoctoral and young researcher applications has increased by 50 per cent since 2018. 38 per cent of the winners are below 40 years, the youngest applicant is 29 years old, while the oldest applicant will launch a new research project in the age of 76.
In line with the traditions, the applications are evaluated in a multi-level procedure, with the involvement of individual referees and expert bodies. The key considerations of evaluation were the scientific significance of the submitted project, its novelty, the expected results, the scientific and social utilisation of the results, as well as earlier researcher performance, academic achievement measured with the number of publications and their rate of citing.
It was pointed out that in the work of referees, the so-called science metric system that shows scientific performance in indexes has also played a role since 2020. The system gives an objective picture about the publication performance of individual applicants, based on standard databases, including in particular the Database of Hungarian Scientific Publications (MTMT), considering the career phase of the given researcher (time since obtaining the PhD degree) and the scientific area, too.
The National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH) managing the financing of winner projects continues to make sure that the projects are implemented with simplified administration and flexible cost accounting, so that researchers can concentrate primarily on the research results and can use their resources as efficiently as possible’, as it was pointed out in the announcement, adding that as opposed to projects financed from public funds, publications of high standard represent an important requirement, as they ensure that research results could be visible for the international scientific community and the general public, too. Winner researchers will have to make their publications available with open and free access, according to the ‘open access’ international standards, and the related costs can be financed from the support won, wrote the announcement of the KIM.
(MTI, Corvinus)