In October 2018, the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research in cooperation with the Estonian Research Council and the Research Council of Norway intend to open a single call for collaborative research projects under the Baltic Research Programme.
The Baltic Research Programme is funded by the Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein by using financial mechanism for 2014–2021. Based on the programme agreement, these funds account for 85% of the programme budget and 15% is contributed by Estonia.
The collaborative research projects between the three Baltic states and the donor countries – Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein – must be conducted until 30 April 2024 with a total budget of €22 million. To select the research projects, three open calls will be foreseen: one in Estonia, another in Latvia (2019) and third one in Lithuania (2019/2020).
The head of the Estonian Research Council, Andres Koppel commented: „This programme surely broadens further opportunities for Baltic and Nordic research collaboration. As at least one project partner has to come from the Baltic States, I am confident that it opens up new levels of cooperation and competence sharing with the colleagues from Latvia and Lithuania.“
The Programme shall strengthen multilateral relations with the aim of stimulating strong and sustainable collaboration, complementarity, capacity and competence-building and provide a stepway for future collaborative research projects on EU and regional level. An important objective of the Programme is to present regional Baltic added value and strengthen human resources in research through facilitating international relations and involving PhD students and postdocs in the projects.
Guidelines for Applicants and Guidelines for Evaluators will be introduced on the homepage of the Estonian Research Council www.etag.ee by 1 October 2018.
Deadline for submitting proposals in ETIS is: 31 January 2019.
The call is planned to be opened on 25 October 2018 during the Launching and Matchmaking Event of the Baltic Research Programme in Tallinn. Registration to the event will be opened from 1 to 20 October 2018 on the webpage www.etag.ee.