Interdisciplinary Research Projects

A prerequisite to further evaluation is the fulfilment of the following eligibility criterion:

Interdisciplinarity – cooperation of researchers working in at least two research domains of the three possible: Physical Sciences and Computer Science, Life Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities. At the same time, according to the evaluation system of the European Research Council (ERC), it must be demonstrated that it is a balanced partnership, not provision of services.

The maximum amount of support per project is CZK 6,000,000 for 3 years. The support of a maximum of 3 projects per year is expected.

Eligible costs

• Personnel costs (wages, bonuses, agreements to complete a job (DPP) and agreements to perform work (DPČ) of persons directly involved in the research activities necessary for the project investigation).
• Immaterial tangible and intangible assets.
• Local and international travel.
• Publication and application costs.
• Additional costs or expenses (projects must include the share in joint operating costs corresponding to the JOC coefficient for the given economic unit in the year concerned according to MU Instruction No. 3/2017 - Rules of determining the proportion of administrative overheads and system of applying overheads to projects, as amended).

Ineligible costs

• Investment
• Costs not eligible for institutional support toward long-term conceptual development (e.g. refreshments).

The drawdown of funds must comply with the rules for the drawdown of funds of institutional support. The necessary transfers among the respective items of the eligible costs are possible after the consultation with the relevant finance office of the ECU.

The amount of approved financial support for a given calendar year shall be allocated to a specific economic unit in the form of an adjusted schedule of institutional support.

The economic and administrative resources of the projects shall be identical to the economic and administrative resources of the units where the researcher and his/her team work (now or in the future), and these units shall also bear common operating costs of the project. Professional and administrative coordination of the project shall be the responsibility of the project investigator.

Changes to the breakdown of the project budget are allowed and shall be justified in the interim and final reports. If the transferred amount exceeds 30 % of the project budget for the given ECU, such change shall be consulted with the RMU Research Office and assessed by the Vice-Rector for Research. The final change shall be decided by the Vice-Rector for Research.

Requisites of an e-mail consultation of changes:

• Project number
• Explanation how the change relates to research within the project
• Justification of the change – brief explanation of the context
• Amount of funds
• Timing – expected implementation of the activity / new date of performance / postponed delivery of the result

The applicant shall submit:

• Project proposal which contains:
  • CV of the principal applicant and co-applicants for the other ECUs, including the Researcher IDs
  • Affidavit
• Detailed budget with reasoning as part of the project proposal
• Project proposal cover sheet

All required documents are entered into the PMIS (Documents tab) and 1 copy of the application form signed by the applicant including all required annexes is delivered to the RMU Research Office. The decisive date is the date of uploading all the documents to the PMIS, which shall occur at the latest by the deadline for the submission of project proposals. For the purpose of alleviating the administrative burden, we recommend approving the cover sheet in the electronic form, which is the responsibility of the principal applicant.

Evaluation criteria

In the project proposal form, the principal applicant shall indicate the focus based on the standardized keywords and the research domain of the project. Pursuant to these parameters, the respective proposals shall be assigned 3 evaluators from the internal database. The selection of evaluators for each project proposal shall be made by the domain guarantor from the database of evaluators (Scientific Advisory Board, SAB). The RMU RO shall communicate with the individual evaluators about the evaluation procedure, delivery of an independent evaluation report, affidavit etc. The communication among all the stakeholders shall be managed by the RMU Research Office.

Long list within a domain / Interim ranking list

The RMU RO prepares an interim ranking list in the respective domains (Physical Sciences and Computer Science, Life Sciences, Social Science and Humanities) on the basis of 3 individual reports of each project proposal, and refers the list to the domain guarantors.

Output: interim ranking list in the form of an excel table with the overview of percentage evaluation of all evaluators including a short summary by each evaluator.

If there are ambiguities (e.g. an extremely high or low evaluation by one evaluator), the guarantor shall ask for additional information from the evaluator concerned.

The result is the ranking list for interdisciplinary research projects.

The amount of funds allocated for each call as well as the number of supported projects in each competition are known; the information is announced in each call and the corresponding number of projects shall be selected accordingly.

Meeting of guarantors and Vice-Rector for Research

The domain guarantors in a meeting with the Vice-Rector for Research shall create one final ranking list for the INTERDISCIPLINARY competition.

• The participants to the meeting shall select project proposals with the best evaluation according to the funds allocated to the competition and the strategic priorities of MU and shall recommend the proposals for funding. If necessary, a reduction of the project budget may be proposed.
• In case the number of projects recommended for funding exceeds the funds allocated to the call, projects shall be funded by the order in the ranking list until the available funds are exhausted.
• The result is the list of projects recommended for funding, of which the Vice-Rector for Research shall inform the Programme Board and MU management.

Decision of the Rector on funding

The Rector of MU decides on awarding the support pursuant to the list of projects recommended for funding in the INTERDISCIPLINARY programme.

The competition results are subsequently published on the GAMU website (https://gamu.muni.cz/aktuality) and all applicants are informed of the results.