The Slovak Research and Development Agency, known by its Slovak acronym APVV (Agentúra na podporu výskumu a vývoja) and referred to in English-language materials as SRDA, is Slovakia’s national research and development grant agency. For research administrators and international collaborators working with Slovak partners, APVV is the central body to understand: it is the primary domestic route through which competitive, public R&D funding reaches researchers and research organizations based in Slovakia, and it is a key point of contact for bilateral, multilateral, and EU-adjacent funding involving Slovak institutions.
What Is APVV/SRDA?
APVV was established by Act No. 172/2005 Coll. (2005), succeeding an earlier support scheme that had operated since 2001, and describes its own mandate as “the instrument for distribution of public finances for research and development on a competitive basis” in Slovakia. The agency funds research across all scientific fields, including basic and applied research, and explicitly includes support for international research cooperation among its core functions. APVV operates under Slovakia’s Ministry of Education, Research, Development and Youth, which sets the policy and budgetary framework within which the agency’s grant schemes run.
Organizational Structure
APVV’s internal governance is organized around three bodies:
- Agency Bureau — the administrative office responsible for day-to-day operation of grant calls, from publication through contracting and monitoring.
- Presidium — the agency’s senior governing body.
- Agency Councils — advisory and decision bodies involved in call design and evaluation oversight.
This structure is broadly comparable to other national research councils covered elsewhere on CASRAI (see the research management associations overview for how national funding bodies typically relate to the broader research-administration profession), though the specific committee names and legal basis are unique to Slovakia’s Act No. 172/2005.
Main Funding Instruments
APVV organizes its grant activity into several distinct call types, each with its own eligibility rules, budget, and timeline. Because call parameters (funding ceilings, project duration, eligible costs, and deadlines) change from one annual cycle to the next, always confirm current details against the specific call documentation on apvv.sk rather than a prior year’s terms.
General Calls (VV)
The General Call, published annually and labeled by year (for example VV 2024, VV 2025), is APVV’s flagship, discipline-open competitive grant scheme. It is open to research organizations based in Slovakia across all fields of science and technology and is the mechanism most Slovak-led APVV-funded projects run through.
Bilateral Calls
APVV runs a program of bilateral calls, each jointly announced with a partner country’s funding agency and restricted to joint Slovak–partner-country research teams. Partner countries with active or recent bilateral calls include Bulgaria, Ukraine, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, France, Hungary, Taiwan, Austria, Israel, and China, among others; the specific roster of open bilateral calls changes year to year. Bilateral calls are the most direct route for an international researcher to be formally involved in an APVV-funded project, since they are structured from the outset as joint proposals with a Slovak co-applicant.
Multilateral Calls
APVV also participates in multilateral funding schemes involving several countries at once, including calls run under the Danube Region Strategy (referenced on APVV’s site as DS-FR calls, run across multiple cycles). These sit alongside APVV’s bilateral program as a second route for cross-border collaboration involving Slovak researchers.
Programme-Specific Co-Funding
APVV has also administered targeted programme calls tied to specific EU or international mechanisms — for example, national co-funding aligned with Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) activity. These calls are narrower in scope than the General Call and are tied to the timeline of the underlying international programme rather than APVV’s own annual cycle.
APVV and Slovakia’s Participation in Horizon Europe
Slovakia is a full EU Member State, so Slovak universities, research institutes, and companies are eligible to participate in Horizon Europe on the same footing as any other member state — coordinating or joining consortia, applying to European Research Council calls, and hosting Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellows — independent of any APVV instrument. APVV’s own bilateral, multilateral, and programme co-funding calls function as a complementary, nationally funded layer alongside direct Horizon Europe participation, rather than a gateway to it.
Slovakia is also formally classified as one of the 15 Horizon Europe “Widening” countries (alongside Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Slovenia) — EU member states identified as having comparatively lower research and innovation performance, for whom Horizon Europe’s Widening Participation and Spreading Excellence strand provides dedicated instruments such as Teaming, Twinning, and ERA Chairs aimed at strengthening research capacity and closing the participation gap with the rest of the EU. See CASRAI’s comparison of Twinning, ERA Chairs, and Teaming for Excellence for how these three Widening instruments differ, and the guide to Horizon Europe National Contact Points (NCPs) for how the NCP network — which every EU member state, including Slovakia, maintains — supports applicants navigating the framework programme.
Practical Guidance for International Researchers
For a researcher or research office outside Slovakia considering a connection to APVV-funded research, the practical routes are:
- Joint bilateral or multilateral proposals. If your country has an active bilateral call with APVV, this is the most direct mechanism — proposals are submitted jointly with a Slovak co-applicant, and both national agencies typically fund their own side of the collaboration (“money follows researcher” or parallel national funding, depending on the call’s specific rules — confirm this on the call’s own terms, as models vary between calls).
- Horizon Europe consortia. Since Slovak institutions participate in Horizon Europe on standard EU-wide terms, joining a Horizon Europe consortium that includes a Slovak partner does not require going through APVV at all — it runs through the standard Horizon Europe application and grant-agreement process.
- Direct contact with the Agency Bureau. APVV’s Agency Bureau is the first point of contact for questions about a specific call’s eligibility for foreign co-applicants, budget rules, and documentation requirements, since these details are set per call rather than as a single, agency-wide policy.
- Language. Core call documentation is published in Slovak, though APVV maintains an English-language version of its site and publishes English translations of at least some call texts (bilateral call documentation in particular); confirm which language governs for any specific call before relying on a translation.
Because APVV’s call landscape changes annually — new bilateral partners are added, prior ones lapse, and General Call terms are republished each cycle — the single most reliable practice for any international collaborator is to check the current call list directly on apvv.sk rather than relying on a general description of the agency’s programme portfolio.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does APVV/SRDA stand for and what does it fund?
APVV is the Agentúra na podporu výskumu a vývoja, Slovakia’s national Research and Development Agency (referred to in English as SRDA). It distributes competitive public funding for research and development across all scientific fields in Slovakia, through general national calls and bilateral, multilateral, and programme-specific international calls.
Can a researcher outside Slovakia receive APVV funding directly?
Not through the General Call, which is restricted to Slovak-based research organizations. International researchers typically participate through APVV’s bilateral or multilateral calls, which require a Slovak co-applicant and are jointly funded or coordinated with a partner country’s own agency, or through Horizon Europe consortia that include a Slovak partner, which run independently of APVV.
Is APVV the same as Slovakia’s Horizon Europe National Contact Point?
No. APVV is Slovakia’s national R&D grant agency; Horizon Europe eligibility and participation for Slovak institutions runs through the standard EU-wide framework-programme process, supported by Slovakia’s own Horizon Europe National Contact Point network, a separate structure from APVV’s own call administration.
Is Slovakia eligible for Horizon Europe Widening instruments?
Yes. Slovakia is one of the 15 EU member states formally designated as a Horizon Europe “Widening” country, making Slovak institutions eligible to participate in and, in many cases, coordinate Widening-specific instruments such as Teaming, Twinning, and ERA Chairs.
