In late 2019, the Board of the Croatian Science Foundation adopted the text of the Multilateral Lead Agency (MLA) Agreement, which will enable Croatian scientists to apply to calls published by other agencies taking part in the Agreement and vice versa. The MLA Agreement is implemented according the Lead Agency principle, which means that a single agency conducts the process of receiving, evaluating and ranking proposals from start to end. 

Within the MLA Agreement, the Croatian Science Foundation signed a Bilateral Cooperation Agreement with the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), which would enable researchers from Croatia and Switzerland to submit proposals to either funding organization. 

Pursuant to the SNSF-HRZZ Bilateral Cooperation Agreement, the Croatian Science Foundation opens the Call for funding the Croatian part of joint Swiss-Croatian research projects. The Swiss Principal Investigator, in collaboration with their Croatian partner, prepares a project proposal pursuant to the Call published by the Swiss National Science Foundation and submits it to the SNSF Call. 

The Croatian team, headed by the Croatian Principal Investigator, in parallel to this, submits a separate application to HRZZ, which consists of the following documents: Administrative Form, CV with five-year track record (PDF of document submitted to SNSF), list of research results in the previous five-year period (PDF of document submitted to SNSF), Work Plan and Financial Plan of the Croatian part of the joint research project, Letter of Support by the PI’s Organization, letters of intent and additional documents. 

Call IPCH-2020-10 in brief:

• Call opening date: 10 July 2020
• Application deadline: the joint proposal should be submitted to SNSF by 1 October 2020 @ 17.00 (CET), while the Croatian PI should submit their application to the EPP system by 2 October 2020 @ 12.00 noon (CET) 
• Research field: the Call is open to all areas of science
• Funding duration: 4 years

Project proposals ranked in the top 20% of all proposals submitted to SNSF and accepted for funding by SNSF will be recommended for financing. 

The application of the Croatian PI shall be submitted only through the EPP system.

Queries related to the Call are to be sent only via email to the following address: ipch@hrzz.hr.

Text of the Call and application documentation may be downlodaded from the page Open calls.

More information on the Lead Agency procedure can be found at the following link: http://www.snf.ch/en/funding/projects/lead-agency/croatia/Pages/default.aspx.

For information on the application procedure to the SNSF Call, please visit: http://www.snf.ch/en/funding/projects/projects-in-all-disciplines/Pages/default.aspx.