GAČR Bilateral International Projects
Funds bilateral Czech research partnerships with institutions in Korea and Taiwan.
⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.
GAČR (Czech Science Foundation), founded in 1993 under Act No. 130/2002 Coll., is the sole Czech public body dedicated exclusively to basic-research funding. Its Bilateral International Projects scheme connects Czech research teams with counterparts in countries where full Lead Agency integration is not yet in place. For the 2027 cycle, the active partner agencies are the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) and the National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan (NSTC). Unlike the Lead Agency model, bilateral projects require independent parallel evaluation: both the Czech and the foreign agency assess the proposal separately, and funding is awarded only if both approve — a stricter standard that demands a strong case on both sides of the partnership.
The 2027-cycle tender was announced on 9 February 2026, with a submission deadline of 31 March 2026. Results are announced on 26 November 2026, and approved projects start in January 2027. Project duration is two to three years. Czech applicants must be affiliated with a university or research organisation; applications from for-profit companies or individuals are not accepted. The Czech team applies to GAČR via the GRITA submission system; the Korean or Taiwanese partner applies separately to NRF or NSTC. Individual award amounts are specified in the tender PDF rather than on the public web pages. GAČR's annual funding pool for 2026 totalled CZK 3.7 billion (approximately €153 million), reflecting the foundation's status as Czech basic research's primary funder.
A separate Israel ISF bilateral call was announced for September 2026, which may open an additional 2027-class bilateral opportunity later in the year. Teams should review the tender document and the submission checklist published on GAČR's website, and should plan for the dual-evaluation timeline when setting project start expectations.
Funds 2–3-year bilateral basic-research projects jointly evaluated by GAČR and a partner agency in South Korea (NRF) or Taiwan (NSTC), requiring approval from both agencies before funding is awarded.
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