Large-scale research infrastructure

• Period: 4 years, renewable with maximum two years
• Acceptable costs:
  • Equipment: costs for research investments, i.e. the costs of purchasing and connecting the research infrastructure or purchasing the components for the construction of the planned research infrastructure, including the non-refundable portion of VAT. This also includes the upgrading, i.e. the substantial improvement of existing research infrastructure;
  • Personnel costs for the development and construction of the research infrastructure. This also includes the personnel costs for upgrading the research infrastructure and the costs for the operational or maintenance personnel once the infrastructure is up and running;
  • Operational costs consisting of maintenance costs throughout the depreciation period, being the costs arising out of maintenance contracts or upgrades of the research infrastructure, equipment repair costs, travel costs to and from abroad and the costs for a CO2 contribution linked to research-related air travel, to the extent that these costs are in line with the development, construction, upgrading, operation and/or maintenance of the research infrastructure.
• Funding percentage: 70% of the subsidisable costs. In order to stimulate cooperation between centres of knowledge and between centres of knowledge and third parties, this percentage can be increased to:
  • 90% of the subsidisable costs if the proposal is made by research groups from more than one subsidy-eligible body and if it is demonstrated in the application dossier that all applicants account for at least half of the amount they would have to pay if the remaining 10% of the subsidisable costs were proportionately distributed. This is to emphasise that there must be a real contribution and commitment from all applicants, and that it is not simply a formal construct.
  • 100% of the portion of the subsidisable costs to be funded by the university or university college itself if at least 25% of the qualifying costs are borne by a body other than a university or university college.
    The eligible costs are not always 100% funded. This means that part of the funding must be found from other bodies or come from own resources.

• Eligible organisations: a research group or research groups at a Flemish university, at higher education institutions in charge of scientific research pursuant to the Higher Education Code of 11 October 2013 (Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp Management School, Vlerick Business School, School of Arts, Antwerp Maritime Academy), a strategic research centre pursuant to article 29 of the Decree of 30 April 2009 (IMEC, VIB, Flanders Make, VITO, …); a partnership between the above bodies or a partnership between at least one of the aforementioned bodies and one or more third parties.
• An application is submitted under the direction of a supervisor, possibly in collaboration with one or more co-supervisors.
• If a proposal is submitted by research groups from several of the bodies, the applicants will designate one supervisor who will act as spokesperson for the application.
• Each research group participating in the application other than that to which the supervisor-spokesperson belongs, shall appoint at least one co-supervisor. They must make a real, financially assessable contribution to the application through their research group or institution, otherwise they will be added as users. A maximum of 50 percent of the co-financing may consist of the co-supervisors' staff costs.
• Co-supervisors can act as co-supervisors for multiple applications at the same time.
• Third parties cannot receive any form of subsidies, directly or indirectly. They can make a real, financially assessable contribution to the research infrastructure.

• For decisions regarding the support of investment initiatives for large-scale research infrastructure the FWO Board of Trustees relies on the advice of experts who assess the scientific quality of the applications, and subsequently verify, for those applications that are rated as excellent, whether the associated investment plans are sufficiently realistic and objective. Two expert commissions are established: the Science and the Invest Commissions as defined in the internal and external peer review regulations.
• As supervisor of the infrastructure, you submit a pre-registration via the FWO E-portal in which you give a short description of the application to be submitted. The deadline is 30 June 2025. Via the FWO E-portal you transfer the proposal in preparation to your institution (= the main applicant of the proposal). Only information on the title of the application (‘tab general’, summary, consortium partners (without financing), keywords, disciplines, suggestions for referees and forbidden referees) should be entered in the application form. Possible collaboration opportunities will be explored thanks to the pre-registration. Shortly after the pre-registration deadline, the proposal in preparation is reopened to the supervisor for further finalisation.
• As supervisor of the infrastructure, you transfer the proposal in preparation via the FWO E-portal to your institution (= the main applicant of the proposal). The internal deadline is September 11, 2025. Please contact the research coordination office of your research institution for practicalities.
• Your institution submits the final proposal to the FWO by September 18, 2025 at 5PM.
• Your application is submitted to a number of external experts that are not active in Belgium. This is scheduled for the period October – November 2025.
• The supervisor receives the anonymous reports from these external reviewers and has the possibility to provide feedback. This will take place in December 2025.
• The members of the Science Commission are given access to the referee reports and the applicants' responses. On this basis, the Science Commission assesses in January 2026 all applications at its first meeting and draws up a list of applications for which a hearing is to be arranged. At this meeting the Commission also makes the preparations for this hearing. At the hearing, the invited applicants are given the opportunity to explain their application and to answer questions from the members of the Science Commission. After all the hearings have taken place, the Science Commission formulates its recommendations and ranks the applications deemed excellent.
• The Invest Commission investigates in February 2026 the investment plans of those proposals deemed excellent by the Science Commission. The Invest Commission then investigates whether any needs or opportunities exist other than those identified in the application, in the field of inter-institutional or inter-association cooperation, or cooperation with domestic or foreign research centres, scientific institutions, or companies. On the basis of these two assessments, the Invest Commission formulates a recommendation, which is added to the Science Commission’s recommendations.
• The FWO Board of Trustees makes a final decision at its March 2026 session in line with the following principles:
  • The list of applications deemed excellent by the Science Commission can only be ratified or rejected. If rejected, the Science and Invest Commissions are questioned again, this time with an express statement of those elements which the Board of Trustees believes require further investigation.
  • If the Invest Commission formulates a recommendation on an application dossier, the Board of Trustees of the FWO will proceed as follows:
    • Either the recommendation will be rejected, and the dossier approved;
    • Or the recommendation will be accepted in part or in full, and the dossier approved, on the understanding that the financing or investment conditions imposed by the Board of Trustees will serve as the terms and conditions for obtaining subsidies;
    • Or the recommendation will be accepted in part or in full, and the dossier only approved if the Board of Trustees is shown the necessary remediation within the period it stipulates, to be no less than ten calendar days and no more than sixty calendar days.
  • If the total amount of subsidies to be granted to proposals deemed excellent exceeds the available amount, the proposals will be subsidised in order of excellence until a proposal is reached which cannot be fully funded. Proposals deemed excellent that are not funded will derive no rights from this in the next call.

General questions on the call for large-scale research infrastructure or specific questions related to submitting an application for this call, should be addressed to the research coordination office of your institution or to infrastructuur@fwo.be.

In case of technical difficulties with the E-portal, please contact fwohelpdesk@fwo.be.