The Slovak Research and Development Agency (APVV) launched on 15th of June an open call regarding “Aid for research and development focused on managing the coronavirus pandemic and its effects for the 2020-2021 period”. The scheme aims to encourage research and development activities focused on the overcoming of the COVID-19 pandemic and minimizing its impact on society. The aid can be granted to R&D and testing facilities/projects with the focus on:relevant medications (including vaccines) and treatments, their intermediate products, effective pharmaceutical components and materials;medical devices,hospital and medical equipment (including lung ventilation, protective clothes and equipment, and diagnostic tools) andnecessary materials, disinfectants, their semi-finished products and chemical substances necessary for their production; as well as tools to collect and process data. The objective of the call is also to strengthen the readiness of the public health system and make the response of the Slovak Republic to biological threats more efficient in the terms of epidemiological procedures (design and implementation of epidemiological studies, such as representative serological surveys) and surveillance of infectious diseases. Applications can be submitted from 15th of June 2020 to 15th of July 2020. The total financial allocation is EUR 8 mil. for the 2020-2021 timeframe. Each successful project shall be entitled to a maximum incentive of EUR 400,000 and should last no more than 18 months. The scheme is not sector-specific and the applicant must meet the following conditions:it must have the activity of research and development registered as its economic activityit must have official R&D certificate (Act No. 172/2005 Coll.)it must submit a project of basic research, industrial research or experimental development with a clear description of results to be obtained and expected benefitsdefines in the application measurable indicators for project outputs in the 1-3 years after the completion of works at the projectthe project must be applicable in praxis (real life) and have a pre-determined user of the projects resultsthe main researcher must be in an employment relationship with applicantthe main researcher needs to be registered in one of the following scientific databases (WoS – Web of Science or Scopus) and have an identifier in one of listed databases Applications may be submitted in all groups of disciplines in science and technology (natural, technical, medical, agricultural, social sciences and humanities). The applicant and partner organization of the project can also be a beneficiary/user of the project’s outputs. It is also possible to involve a third party from abroad to the cooperation on the project (e.g. a scientific institution, a university, a start-up, an undertaking). For more details, please see the full version of the call here or contact APVV agency directly.
