NRFU: donor analysis, history and call statistics

216 winning projects and UAH 255.3 million in grant funding during the first year of operation. Two years later, in 2022, one call ended with twelve winners and UAH 5.5 million. The National Research Foundation of Ukraine (NRFU) is the only Ukrainian state body that funds science through competition rather than through institutional payrolls, and its history shows clearly how the state keeps opening and closing that channel.

In 2026 the foundation ran eight calls. As of 31 July 2026 none of them stays open, because submission closed across all of them by mid May, while results are expected by 15 December. Below you will find how the foundation works, what its call statistics reveal, and what to prepare if you plan to apply in the spring 2027 window.

How the NRFU came about

The state created the foundation in July 2018, and it started running calls in 2020. It works as a state budget institution with the right to announce calls for research and development projects and then fund the winners. Before the NRFU appeared, competitive science funding in this form did not exist in Ukraine, since money went to institutions through base funding rather than to projects through expert review.

The foundation selects and funds projects across every field: natural, technical, social and humanities. That breadth separates it from thematic donors, where the topic comes predefined.

What the first two calls revealed

During 2020 the foundation ran two calls, ‘Science for human security and society’ and ‘Support for research by leading and young scientists’. Together they produced 216 winners and UAH 255.3 million.

• Science for human security and society: out of 421 proposals under consideration, 76 projects won with a combined budget of UAH 118 million, so roughly 18% succeeded.
• Support for research by leading and young scientists: 415 proposals arrived, 99 were rejected at the first stage on formal grounds, and 140 projects won almost UAH 137 million. Success ran at roughly 34%.
• Winners of the second call split by field as follows: 99 projects in natural sciences, engineering and mathematics, 27 in biology, medicine and agricultural sciences, and 14 in social sciences and humanities.

Two numbers here deserve attention. First, almost a quarter of the second call’s proposals fell on formal grounds before any scientific review took place. Second, the tilt towards natural sciences and engineering ran almost seven to one against social sciences and humanities. Both patterns persist in later calls.

At the same time the foundation named its own constraint publicly. Under the legislation then in force it could implement only one of the ten grant support directions that the law envisaged for it. So the design was narrower than the original intent from the very start.

How the war broke the foundation and then restarted it

2022 collapsed the budget. Call 2022.01, ‘Science for the reconstruction of Ukraine in wartime and postwar periods’, ended with twelve winners and UAH 5.5 million in total funding. For comparison, two years earlier a single call carried UAH 118 million. Alongside that, the foundation launched call 2022.02, ‘Cambridge, NRFU’, which offered individual research grants to Ukrainian scientists, so it began sourcing money externally.

The next round of the same call, with submission until 31 January 2023, looked different. The Scientific Council approved results in July 2023: 221 proposals arrived, 142 met the formal criteria and went through scientific and technical review, and 67 projects won. That works out at roughly 30% of everything submitted and 47% of what reached review.

The call topics show where the state redirected science: restoring production of goods and services, new technologies and materials for industry, environmental damage from combat, health disorders across the population, food and energy security, complex rehabilitation for people with war injuries, and protection of critical infrastructure.

The second part of the restart ran through international partnerships. In November 2025 the NRFU and the Dutch Research Council (NWO) opened a second round of the NWO Hop-On programme, while the foundation’s international cooperation grew into partnerships with Science Europe, the Research Council of Norway, the German Research Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Polish NCBR and Foundation for Polish Science, and the University of Cambridge.

Who decides and how proposals get scored

The foundation runs on four governance layers: a Supervisory Board, a Scientific Council, the Head of the Foundation and the Directorate. A Board of International Counselors works separately. The Scientific Council takes the decision on winners, based on ranking lists that come out of the review process.

How the review works

External experts evaluate the proposals, some without payment and some paid according to Ministry of Social Policy rates. Registering as a reviewer does not remove your own right to apply, although the foundation will not assign you to score proposals in the same topic where you compete. Reviewer registration stays open year-round, and for a researcher this remains an underused way to understand the scoring logic from the inside.

One procedural detail regularly surprises applicants. The call conditions state plainly that the foundation gives no advice on whether a participant meets the conditions, on the content of proposals, or on how to fill in the application. Its communication channels serve only enquiries about the course of a call and technical support for the system. So you can check your own eligibility only by reading the conditions yourself.

The 2026 line-up of calls

The eight calls announced during 2026 show how the foundation splits money by applicant type. Four of the eight are presidential grants for early-career researchers, separated by age and academic degree.

2026.01, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Prize named after Ihor Yukhnovskyi.

2026.02, annual grants of the President of Ukraine for Doctors of Science up to 45 years old.

2026.03, presidential grants for early-career researchers, Doctors of Sciences up to 40.

2026.04, presidential grants for early-career researchers, doctoral students up to 35.

2026.05, presidential grants for early-career researchers, PhDs and Candidates of Sciences up to 35.

2026.06, ‘Excellent Fundamental Science in Ukraine 2027-2029’. Submission ran from 25 March to 24 April 2026.

2026.07, ‘Individual Research Projects 2027-2028’. Submission ran from 1 April to 1 May 2026, with up to UAH 1 million over two years. This format serves single researchers rather than teams.

2026.08, ‘Applied Science for the Resilience and Recovery of Ukraine’. Submission ran from 10 April to 11 May 2026.

Beyond the national calls, two joint ones ran during 2026: the LUKE Joint Call, open from 27 February to 15 May, and a joint call with the Research Council of Norway on mental health in Ukraine during and after wartime. The foundation keeps the history of earlier calls in its completed calls section.

What to do before spring 2027

The calendar stays stable: announcements in February and March, submission until mid May, results in December, and project delivery from the following year. That leaves roughly eight months to prepare, and this is exactly where most applicants do the opposite by starting two weeks before the deadline.

Three things genuinely move the outcome, and all three happen well in advance. First, the formal part. Almost a quarter of the proposals in the first large call died there, and since the foundation gives no advice on eligibility, you have to read the conditions yourself and literally.

Second, registration in the call system through id.gov.ua. Do that outside the season, because load on the system rises during the final days of submission. Third, reviewer experience. Registration stays open all year, scoring other people’s proposals teaches you the criteria, and it leaves your own right to apply untouched.

One more thing on reporting. The foundation publishes annotated reports and budget spending reports for completed projects, so before applying you can look at what real winners delivered in your field and calibrate your own scale against that.