The purpose of the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA) is to support basic scientific research, and the establishment of conditions necessary for performing these activities and to publicise results, which are expected to result in the discovery of new scientific rules, the development of knowledge, methods and procedures; the OTKA may also be used to develop infrastructure promoting such results.

The OTKA was established in 1986 under the aegis of the Hungarian Academy of Science. From 1991 the OTKA operated as an autonomous institution. In 1993 the Parliament adopted the Law of the OTKA which legalised the research support system developed by the OTKA. In 1997 the Parliament adopted a newer Law for the OTKA which strengthened its independence. In 1995 the General Assembly of the European Science Foundation (ESF) accepted the OTKA as a full member of the ESF.

The main financial resource of the OTKA is the annual state budget. Due to the decision of the Science and Technology Policy Council the OTKA gets 5101 MHUF for 2001 and 6801 MHUF for 2002 for the Scientific Programmes.

From the universities, research centres, research institutes individual scientists and scientific teams can submit applications to the OTKA in the field of social sciences and humanities, science and engineering and life sciences. The OTKA provides grants for the following purposes: - thematic research grants, - research grants and post doctoral fellowship for young (up to 35 years of age) scientists, grants of instrumentation, of electronic databases and full-text periodicals for libraries; - participation in conferences, international co-operation.

The OTKA grants help the Hungarian scientists to take part in common research carried out abroad, to take part in international conferences, to collaborate with scientist in several research institutions abroad. Scientists from abroad are welcome to take part in OTKA research projects. The OTKA has agreements with the Austrian, the Netherlands and the US National Research Fund to support common basic research. The OTKA has discussions with the Belgian and German Research Fund to support joint research grants.

Annually about 5000 research grants are supported by the OTKA.

The acceptable ratio of the research grants are about 50%. In the case of the other type of applications it is much lower.

Mrs Zsuzsanna GILYÉN
Manager director of the OTKA Office
OTKA Office
H-1087 Budapest Könyves Kálmán krt. 48-52.
Tel: 36-1-2100 167, Fax: 210 7874
E-mail: otka@ella.hu