Call for proposals: The Science and Technology Development Fund (FDCT) -2025 FDCT-NSFC Joint Subsidy Program

Dear leaders and colleagues:

Our university has received notification from the Macau Science and Technology Development Fund (FDCT) that applications for the "2025 FDCT-NSFC Joint Subsidy Program"  will be able to apply on February 5, 2025. We would like to remind you that colleagues who are interested in applying for the application must fill out the online system（https://apps.fdct.gov.mo/subsidy/public/index.html#/）and obtain the approval from your Faculty/ Research Institute/ Research Supervisor of Department, then send the recommendation form (including the opinions and signatures), as well as related attachments should be submitted on or before  February 17, 2025 to RTAO David Xu(yuanxu@must.edu.mo).

The research project for this program has the following requirements:

1. The Maximum applied amount of each project in this scheme granted by the FDCT is MOP 2.5 million, to be released in installments in a maximum of 3 years. The Macao grantee must implement the project according to the “Funding Agreement” signed with the FDCT.

2. Supported Fields are Natural sciences, where the primary academic discipline codes under the “Primary Academic Discipline” completed in the “Online Application System for Project Funding” must be 110, 120, 130, 140, 150, 160, and 170. Biomedical and Traditional Chinese Medicine fields, where the primary academic discipline codes under the “Primary Academic Discipline” completed in the “Online Application System for Project Funding” must be 180, 190, 210, 220, 230, 240, 310, 320, 330, 340, 350, and 360. Projects involving basic infrastructure construction, pure equipment procurement, soft science research such as policy and management, or market promotion are not supported.

3. The Macao applicant must fully discuss with its cooperating partner in Mainland China on issues such as the research content, the research plan and the division of labor. Then the project proposal should be filled out accordingly, together with the signed cooperation agreement or memorandum with the Mainland’s counterpart and submit to the deadline. Please prepare the cooperation agreement or memorandum as soon as possible, because of  it requires the signatures and seals of both parties. If the cooperation agreement requires the signature and seal of the university president, a separate application form must be filled out and a minimum of 7 working days must be allowed for follow-up.

4. Mainland partners must also declare to NSFC. Details on applications can be referred to the relevant guidelines published by the NSFC.

5. Consistency of the project name and name of the PI of both parties listed in the submitted proposal is strongly recommended, where the research content should clearly state the complementary advantages of this cooperation.

6. In accordance with the "Trial Measures for Principal Investigator to Undertake Projects under Research by FDCT" and the relevant restrictions of NSFC, it is not appropriate to apply for "2025 FDCT-NSFC Joint Subsidy Program" if any of the following conditions exist：

a)      The PI who already has ongoing NSFC projects, that base on Zhuhai MUST Science and Technology Research Institute.

Moreover, we are attaching Guideline, the Research Project Recommendation Form,  Subject Codes (only Chinese version). In order to assist the Principal Investigator to improve the quality of their research proposals, RTAO will uniformly arrange the format review this time, so please be sure to submit application documents within internal deadline (on or before  February 17, 2025). If the project fails to be submitted on time or the project fails to complete the internal reviews, we will consider not to recommending your application to FDCT for further process.

For more details please check https://www.fdct.gov.mo/zh_tw/external_cooperation_details/article/nsfc.html

Thank you for your kind attention. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.