Internal Grant Competition

Research activity of students at VSE is carried out through the Internal Grant Competition (IGC) which is a special form of financial support directly aimed at PhD and master´s study programs students. Financial source for internal grants comes from the state budget as resources for specific university research (within targeted research) through the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport. The legal framework for funding is the Act on the Support of Research and Development. Specific university research is defined as “research performed by students as part of accredited doctoral or master´s study programs and which is directly related to their studies”.

 

Principles of the Internal Grant Competition

2025 IGC Documentation:   Principles of Internal Grant Competition (valid for projects starting in 2025)

 

The core IGC principles are:

  • financial support shall not exceed CZK 3 000 000 for a student project per one calendar year, or CZK 5 000 000 for a research project led by a member of academic staff,
  • number of students of doctoral and master´s study programs in a research team is at least equal to the number of other members (academic staff) of team,
  • the research team shall consist of a maximum of 50 persons,
  • scholarships and other personal expenses of students are at least 75 % of the total amount of academics´ wages and scholarships,
  • financial support for organization of student scientific conferences to present students´ research results makes up 10 % of IGC total budget per year,
  • duration of an IGC project is up to 36 months.

 

The body responsible for the organization of IGC at VSE is the Internal Grant Agency (hereinafter referred to as “IGA”). IGA consists of the Grant Committee and of 6 Faculty Grant Councils:

  • Grant Committee (“GC”) – VSE project coordinator; its responsibilities are competition regulations creation, calls for proposals, final selection of grant proposals and evaluation of research outputs, allocation of grants, submitting of Annual Evaluation Reports to the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, and to evaluate interdisciplinary projects (ID -common projects of 2 or more faculties of VSE) – GC acts within the scope of the Grant Councils activities. Structure of the Grant Committee is:
    • chairman: Vice-Rector for Research,
    • members: Vice-Deans for Research of all faculties,
    • at least 2 prominent researchers outside VSE.
  • Faculty Grant Council (“GCF”) – Faculty project coordinator; its responsibilities are the choice of peer reviewers, initial assessment and pre-selection of the grant proposals on the basis of peer evaluation, draft version of grant allocations, monitoring of running projects and the pre-evaluation of research outputs. Structure of the Faculty Grant Councils is:
    • chairmen: Vice-Deans for Research,
    • members: prominent researchers from the faculty,
    • at least 2 prominent researchers outside VSE.

Organizational and administrative support for the GC activities is provided by the Research Office at VSE.  Information on the use of received funds (Evaluation Report) is annually reported to the Ministry of Education.