Armenia’s Higher Education and Science Committee (HESC) is the state body, functioning within the Republic of Armenia’s Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports (MESCS), responsible for administering the country’s competitive public research grant programs. For a research administrator or investigator working with Armenian collaborators, or a foreign researcher considering a project hosted in Armenia, HESC is the counterpart to bodies such as the UK’s UKRI, Canada’s Tri-Agency, or India’s SERB — a national funding council that runs its own calls, its own review process, and its own eligibility rules, distinct from any single university’s internal funding.
This guide covers what HESC is, the main grant programs it currently runs, and how the application process works for both Armenia-based and foreign researchers. Program names, eligibility windows, and funding terms are set by each individual call for proposals and do change year to year — always confirm current details directly against HESC’s own materials before an investigator commits time to a proposal.
What HESC Is and Where It Sits
HESC (sometimes rendered RA MoESCS Higher Education and Science Committee) is Armenia’s national science-funding authority, operating as a state committee inside MESCS rather than as an independent foundation. Its remit spans both higher-education policy and the country’s competitive research grant portfolio — the same committee that sets higher-education regulatory policy also runs the thematic and targeted funding programs described below. The committee’s official English-language site is hesc.am; grant applications and reporting are handled through a dedicated portal at grants.hesc.am, separate from the informational site. Researchers who encounter the older science.am domain in older literature or citations should treat hesc.am as the current authoritative source and verify any older link still resolves before relying on it.
Because HESC functions as a government committee rather than a private foundation, its programs follow public-procurement-style competitive calls: each program is opened through a formal call for proposals with its own announcement, deadline, and evaluation criteria, rather than a standing rolling-application fund.
Main Research Grant Programs
HESC has run several distinct grant programs in recent cycles. The specific set of open calls changes from year to year, so treat the list below as the general shape of HESC’s portfolio, not a guarantee that every program is currently accepting applications:
Advanced Research Grant Program
A multi-year, team-based program funded through contractual (thematic) funding of scientific and technical activities. Calls have specified research groups of roughly six to seven members, led by an Armenia-based Principal Investigator with a documented publication record over the preceding decade, with awards made on a competitive basis for terms reported at up to five years. As with all HESC programs, exact team-size, duration, and budget parameters are set per call — confirm against the live call text rather than a prior cycle’s terms.
PostDoc-Armenia Program
A postdoctoral program specifically for foreign researchers, aimed at attracting PhD holders to conduct a funded research project at a state-funded research or educational institution in Armenia. Past calls have defined eligibility around applicants who have not lived, studied, or been employed in Armenia for more than 12 months within the 4 years preceding the call, and have required the awardee to relocate to Armenia for the duration of the grant. This program is one of the clearest entry points for a foreign researcher with no prior Armenia-based affiliation.
Integration Grant Program
Introduced as part of a set of programs launched from 2022–2023 onward aimed at attracting leading foreign scientists into Armenian universities and research organizations on a more integrated, longer-term basis than a single postdoctoral placement. It sits alongside PostDoc-Armenia as part of HESC’s broader internationalization push — HESC has periodically announced coordinated calls (for example, a 2026 announcement bundling several calls aimed at internationalization) rather than treating each foreign-researcher program as a one-off.
Young Researchers Support Program
A group-based program supporting early-career researchers. Recent calls have allowed group members to include both Armenian citizens and foreign citizens at the time of submission, provided all members reside in Armenia — either as citizens or residents — for the full duration of the project. This distinguishes it from PostDoc-Armenia and the Integration Grant Program, which are specifically structured around relocating a foreign researcher into Armenia, versus a program open to a mixed-nationality team already resident there.
Bilateral and Regional Cooperation Calls
HESC also runs joint calls with partner national funding bodies — for example, a joint Armenian-Georgian research cooperation call — and has separately run a program specific to Artsakh-related research. These calls are narrower in scope and audience than the standing programs above, and are announced on an as-needed basis tied to a specific bilateral or regional agreement rather than a recurring annual cycle.
How the Application Process Works
- Identify the specific call. HESC does not run one generic “apply for a grant” pathway — each program above is opened through its own call for proposals, published on hesc.am, with its own deadline, eligibility rules, and required documentation. Read the specific call text; don’t assume terms carry over from a prior year’s cycle or from a different program.
- Confirm eligibility against the call, not the program name alone. As the summaries above show, eligibility varies meaningfully by program — some require the applicant to already be Armenia-based, others require the opposite (a foreign researcher who has specifically not recently lived in Armenia), and residency-during-project requirements differ between programs aimed at teams versus programs aimed at individual relocation.
- Submit through the grants portal. Applications and subsequent progress/financial reporting are handled through HESC’s dedicated online system at grants.hesc.am, separate from the general informational site.
- Secure a host-institution affiliation where the program requires one. Programs built around a foreign researcher relocating to Armenia (PostDoc-Armenia, Integration Grant) require the funded work to be conducted at a state-funded Armenian research or educational institution — an applicant should identify and confirm a hosting arrangement with that institution as part of preparing the application, not after an award decision.
- Track results and reporting obligations. HESC publishes grant competition results on its official site, and awarded projects carry ongoing progress and financial reporting obligations back through the same portal used to apply — the same pre-award/post-award distinction that governs grants administration generally (see CASRAI’s Principal Investigator (PI) and grants-management fundamentals content for the underlying vocabulary).
Notes for International Research Offices
For a sponsored-programs or research-office administrator outside Armenia advising a faculty member on a potential Armenia-based collaboration or relocation, three things are worth flagging early:
- HESC funding is a national, not institutional, mechanism — an Armenian host institution does not itself fund the researcher; HESC’s competitive award does, subject to the specific program’s rules, which is the same structural pattern as other national funding councils covered elsewhere in this cluster (see CASRAI’s guides to Brazil’s CNPq, India’s SERB, and Singapore’s research funding landscape for comparable national funding-body structures aimed at international researchers).
- Relocation and residency terms are program-specific and binding — PostDoc-Armenia’s requirement that the awardee actually relocate for the grant term, and the Young Researchers program’s requirement that team members reside in Armenia throughout, are eligibility conditions administrators should confirm before an applicant invests time in a proposal, not administrative fine print to review after an award.
- English-language materials exist but primary calls should still be checked directly — hesc.am publishes English versions of its calls and news, which is a genuine advantage for international outreach compared to funding bodies that operate only in the national language, but the authoritative version of any specific call’s terms is what HESC itself publishes, not a secondary summary (including this one).
For the broader vocabulary of pre-award and post-award grants administration referenced throughout this guide, see CASRAI’s grants management pillar, and for the professional associations that document how research administration itself is organized across countries, see ARMA, EARMA, and INORMS: International Research Management Associations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is HESC the same as Armenia’s Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports?
No. HESC is a state committee that operates within MESCS rather than the ministry itself — MESCS is the parent ministry; HESC is the specific body inside it that runs higher-education policy and competitive research grant programs.
Can a researcher who has never worked in Armenia apply for HESC funding?
Some programs are built specifically for this case. PostDoc-Armenia, for example, has historically required applicants to not have recently lived, studied, or worked in Armenia, precisely because it is designed to bring new foreign researchers into Armenian institutions. Other programs, like the Young Researchers Support Program, instead require ongoing Armenia residency throughout the project. Read the specific call’s eligibility section before assuming either direction applies.
Where do I submit an HESC grant application?
Through HESC’s dedicated grants portal at grants.hesc.am, not the general hesc.am informational site. The informational site is where calls for proposals and results are announced; the portal is where applications and subsequent reporting are actually submitted.
Does HESC fund research outside Armenia?
HESC’s standing programs are built around research conducted at Armenian institutions — either by Armenia-based teams (Advanced Research Grant) or by researchers who relocate to or reside in Armenia (PostDoc-Armenia, Integration Grant, Young Researchers). Bilateral cooperation calls, such as joint calls with partner countries’ funding bodies, can involve cross-border collaboration, but these are announced individually rather than being a standing feature of HESC’s core programs.
Is science.am still the right site to check for HESC information?
Treat hesc.am as the current, authoritative HESC domain. If a citation or search result points to science.am, confirm it against hesc.am before relying on program details, since domains and site structures for government science bodies change over time.
