National Research Programme II

 

1. The mission and purpose of NRP II in the system of support of research and development from public funds in the Czech Republic

According to Section 5 (1) (b) of Act No. 130/2002 Coll. on support of research and development as amended the National Research Programme is a set of programmes being approved by the Government that implements a substantial part of the National Research and Development Policy of the Czech Republic and contains the definition of specific support targets for the period of 4 to 6 years for the targeted funding of implementation of research priorities of the Czech Republic. 

The National Research Programme II (NPV II) is an instrument implementing the National Research and Development Policy of the Czech Republic for 2004 – 2008.

The mission of NRP II is to assist the Czech Republic to reach the economic development and improvement of the quality of life of its inhabitants and level of human resources and to maintain at least its economic position in selected sectors.

The purpose of NRP II is to implement in the period from 2006 to 2011 the priorities of the National Research and Development Policy of the Czech Republic for 2006 to 2008 (NR&DP) through a set of 4 thematic programmes and 3 cross-sectional programmes with the overall expenditures of at least CZK 9,196 mil throughout the whole period of NRP II, of this CZK 7,335 from the State Budget. The way of implementing NR&DP by NRP II through the thematic and cross-sectional programmes is referred to in Tables I and II.

Table I - Thematic priorities of the national policy and thematic programmes of NRP II implementing them

Table II – System priorities of the national policy and cross-sectional programmes of NRP II implementing them

 

2.      Basic structure of the programme

 

           NRP II consists of 7 programmes in total, i.e. 4 thematic and 3 cross-sectional programmes. The basic structure of NRP II is referred to in Tables III and IV and hierarchically represented in Figure I.

Table III -  Thematic Programmes of NRP II 

 

Provider	Thematic programme	Interest index[1]	Thematic areas[2] (sub-programmes)
MTI	Permanent prosperity (TP1)	0,60	T1-1-1 Increase reliability of el.nets and high voltage switching stations T1-1-2 Hydrogen and fuel elements usage as energy resources T1-1-3 New nuclear technologies to produce electricity, high-potential heat and hydrogen T1-1-4 Lowering the energetical demand at buildings operations T1-1-5 Renewable energy resources T1-2-1 New technologies and materials for air protection   T1-2-2 Technologies to protect mountains and mineral env. T1-3-1 New materials with new use attributes technical systems      T1-3-2 New materials application in machinery construction             T1-3-3 Mechatronical systems and robotics T1-3-4 New structures of production machinery T1-3-5 New semiconductor sensors and nanoparts T1-3-6 Increase of production lifetime and reliability of machinery products and facilities with high technical parameters T1-3-7 New methods of nanodiagnostics T1-4-1 Alternative resources in transport development                      T1-4-2 Improvement and quality raise of transport infrastructure T1-4-3 Means of transport and systems for public and individual transport     T1-5-1 Chemical optimalization and development of new engineering and pharmaceutical technologies T1-5-2 Chemicals safety T1-5-3 Nanomaterials and processes T1-5-4 Development of new chemical substances to be included in products of other branches T1-5-6 Organical syntheses for products with high added value tax T1-5-7 Catalysts for environmental protection, energetics, and low-waste chemical technologies
MEYS	Healthy And Quality Life (TP2)	0,61	T2-1-1 Healthy and safe goods T2-2-2 Systems and methods to assess the health safety of healthy nourishment food raws, goods and feed T2-1-4 Non-traditional usage of agricultural production T2-2-1 Development of new diagnostics based on molecular  biology methods T2-2-2 New medicaments based on mol. genetics and biotechnologies T2-2-3 Nanomaterials to be applied in biology and medicine T2-2-4 Biomaterials for transplanation medicine T2-2-5 Genomics, proteomics and pathofyziology of kardiovascular diseases T2-2-6 Genomics and proteomics of cell differenciation at onkological diseases T2-3-1 Limitation to surface waters pollution T2-3-2 Env. bioremediation through microorganisms T2-3-3 Waste reproduction and recycling T2-3-4 Biodiversity T2-3-5 Environment and health
	Information Technologies for Knowledgeable society (TP3)	0,58	T3-1-1 Knowledge management and informatics, mainly to support illness prevention and treatment                T3-1-2 Open and mobile systems for internet and industrial applications T3-1-3 Information security and kryptology T3-1-4 Information infrastructure, e-learning and virtual working place T3-1-5 Language barriers elimination through information technologies
	Social and Economical Development of the Czech society    (TP4)	-	T4-1-1 Ageing Czech society T4-1-2 Modernisation of Czech public politics and administration in the EU context T4-1-3 Migration problems and their influence on the Czech society T4-1-4 Modernisation of public services T4-1-5 Institutional frame of socially-economical stratification processes T4-1-6 Interests of the Czech state and society in European integration processes

 

Table IV – Cross-section programmes of NRP II

 

Provider	Cross-section programme	Thematic areas (sub-programme)
MEYS	Human resources (PP1)	P1-1 Research to improve basic, secondary and tertiary education and general human resource development P1-2 Research encouragement at universities P1-3 Improve attractively of the research profession and its gender-related support P1-4 Research popularisation P1-5 Migration support
	International co-operation (PP2)	Research for the state administration acc. to §3, par.1a) Act No.130/2002 Coll., about support to research and development, as amended, directed to fulfilment of the tasks assigned by the government to the central state administration for research and development for providing international co-operation in this area.
	Support for preparation and realisation of national politics including technical assistance  (PP4)	Research for the state administration acc. to §3, par.1a) Act No.130/2002 Coll., about support to research and development, as amended, directed to fulfilment of the tasks assigned by the government to the central state administration for research and development and to realisation of current, as well as preparation of the new politics of research, and further to fulfil central administrative office tasks specified in competence act and §33 Act No.130/2002 Coll., about support to research and development, as amended. The only user in this case is the state.[3]

 

NRP II will be co-ordinated by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MEYS) through the NRPII Council that is governed by the statute and rules of procedure approved by the Government Decision No. 417 of 28^th April, 2003. The proposal of a new composition of the new NRPII Council (since 2006) will take into account the nominations of individual concerned ministries for representation of the professional community representatives in this body.

 

 

Scheme I – Structure of National Research Programme II

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For thematic programmes with anticipated co-participation of private business entities (particularly TP1 to TP3) the index of the user sphere’s interest in co-financing this programmes of NRP II was determined (the interest index is mentioned with corresponding programmes of NRPII in Table III).

The publicizing of these thematic and cross-sectional programmes of NRP II does not mean any cancellation of the thematically oriented departmental programmes which will continue in the future within the meaning of Section 4 (1) (c) of Act on support of research and development. 

 

3. The objectives of thematic and cross-sectional programmes of NRP II

 

3.1. The objectives of the thematic programme “Sustained Prosperity” (TP1)

 

1.      To prepare new materials and provide new procedures for utilisation of renewable and untraditional sources of energy, including the hydrogen energy.

2.      To increase the reliability of the electrical energy transmission systems.

3.      To work out new procedures for nuclear power technologies.

4.      To reduce the energy demands of the operation of buildings.

5.      To create new non-conventional machine structures and constructions.

6.      To create new materials with new useful properties, including nanomaterials and new methods of material diagnostics.

7.      To prepare new semiconductor components for diagnostics and control.

8.      To increase the utilisation of the transport security system.

9.      To introduce new procedures for selected sectors of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

10.  To develop new materials, new additions to products of other sectors, new polymers and catalysts.

 

3.2 The objectives of the thematic programme “Healthy and High-quality Life (TP2)

 

1.      To provide new procedures of processing, distribution, control and unique identification of healthy and unexceptionable food products and finding of their new sources.

2.      To create new systems of production organisms improvement.

3.      To develop new diagnostic procedures, including nanotechnological methods, for quick, precise and patient-friendly determination of the patient’s condition and monitoring of the treatment progress.

4.      To increase the therapeutic efficiency and safety of drugs.

5.      To develop new procedures in genomics of serious illnesses.

6.      To create new medical materials and procedures.

7.      To reduce emission of environmentally harmful gases, improve the condition of sites   affected by environmental burdens of the past, including improvement of the watercourses cleanness

8.      To work out innovative procedures in waste management.

9.      To work out the methodology of environmental standards implementation according to OECD standards.

 

3.3 The objectives of the thematic programme “Information Technology for Knowledge-based Society (TP3)

 

1.      To develop technical infrastructure for knowledge management, particularly in health care, social security and state administration in general.

2.      To develop new information infrastructures on universities.

3.      To develop new methods of knowledge management, particularly by using the artificial intelligence methods, machine learning and information and data warehouses.

4.