According to the final results of the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation’s (HFRI’s) first call for the financial support of doctoral candidates who already implement or wish to implement their doctoral theses in Greek Universities, 539 doctoral candidates will be awarded a scholarship out of the 2114 submitted applications.

The large number of applications as well as the objections were assessed by Qualified Experts and Thematic Evaluation Committees which were comprised of renowned scientists through a transparent, thorough and laborious process.

Each of the provided scholarships amounts to 900 euros per month, and their entire duration varies from 12 to 36 months. The scholarships allocation by research area is as follows:

• Natural Sciences: (136 scholarships)
• Medicine and Health Sciences (138 scholarships)
• Engineering and Information Sciences (131 scholarships)
• Humanities and Social Sciences (133 scholarships)

Indicatively, there will be funded 115 doctoral candidates coming from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 95 from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 69 from the University of Crete, 64 from the University of Patras and 51 from the National Technical University of Athens.

The substantial number of scholarships awarded to doctoral candidates express practically the Government’s determination to promote actions that support new scientists in a direct and front-loaded way, which is of vital importance in the financial crisis that our country is experiencing. In particular, while the initially allocated budget was 8.5 million euros for the doctoral candidates support, the large number and, especially, the high quality of the submitted proposals led to the decision to increase it to € 13.5 million.

The forthcoming second call for proposals is expected to broaden the funding outlook and provide an opportunity for support to doctoral candidates who could not be funded at this stage despite their remarkable performance.

Regarding the announcement of the final results, the Alternate Minister for Research and Innovation, Costas Fotakis said:

“I would like to congratulate all the doctoral candidates irrespectively of the possibility of funding their application in this first call.

The large number of the doctoral candidates to be supported is a tangible example of the Government’s and Ministry’s efforts to reverse the outflow of young scientists abroad, the so-called brain drain. Creating career prospects and high-quality research is at the heart of this effort.

I would like to stress that the broader goal of all HFRI’s actions is to support and promote the human potential and quality research conducted in the Greek Universities and Research Centers.

The fulfillment of this aim is a prerequisite for the development of a new production model (the Knowledge Driven Economy) in Greece which will depend on Knowledge.

As the way out of the crisis is now clearly specified, actions such as those of HFRI combined with those of the NSRF (National Strategic Reference Framework) and the opportunities created by new funding schemes, such as that of the Fund of the Funds, the recently established Equi Fund for supporting the innovative entrepreneurship, indicate a complete, coherent and clear framework for shaping the Knowledge Driven Economy with strong development prospects”