The Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca (MUR) is the Italian government ministry responsible for university policy and public research funding. Its flagship competitive grant scheme, PRIN — Progetti di Ricerca di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (“Research Projects of Significant National Interest”) — is Italy’s principal investigator-driven, bottom-up funding line for basic and applied research across all disciplines. For a research office working with an Italian partner institution, or an administrator scoping international collaboration options, PRIN is the closest Italian equivalent to a national research council’s open, discipline-spanning grant competition — comparable in role, though not in mechanics, to schemes like the UK’s AHRC funding or Canada’s CIHR Project Grant. This guide covers what MUR does, how PRIN is structured and evaluated, what a project can typically expect to receive, and where PRIN sits alongside MUR’s other national funding channels.
MUR’s role in Italian research funding
MUR sits above Italy’s public university and research system, setting funding policy, allocating the ordinary block grant Italian universities receive (the Fondo di Finanziamento Ordinario), and running competitive, project-based grant lines on top of that baseline funding. PRIN is administered directly by MUR’s research directorate, with the application portal and IT infrastructure operated in partnership with CINECA, the consortium that also runs shared systems for many other Italian university administrative processes. Eligible participating institutions include Italy’s state and legally-recognized private universities, polytechnics, and — via a parallel call track — AFAM institutions (Alta Formazione Artistica, Musicale e Coreutica: Italy’s conservatories, art academies, and dance/drama schools) and specialized research schools such as the Scuola Normale Superiore. PRIN itself does not fund individual researchers directly; it funds research units hosted at these eligible institutions.
What PRIN funds, and how projects are structured
PRIN supports investigator-led, curiosity-driven research proposed from the bottom up — MUR does not set the research topics in advance, unlike more directed funding lines. A PRIN project is organized as a set of research units (Unità di Ricerca), each based at a different eligible institution and each led by its own principal investigator. One unit’s PI acts as the project’s national scientific coordinator, responsible for the overall proposal and for reporting to MUR on the group’s behalf. A PRIN proposal requires a minimum of two research units, and — reflecting the scheme’s emphasis on building national research networks rather than funding single-institution work — units on the same project must belong to different universities or institutions; a single institution cannot host every unit on one award. Institutions themselves are expected to co-finance participation alongside MUR’s grant, and MUR’s own published methodology for the scheme describes the funding mechanism as resting on three pillars: co-financing, multi-unit collaborative research, and independent peer review.
PRIN’s current funding lines
MUR runs PRIN as a recurring competition rather than a single static program, and the exact line-up of open calls shifts from round to round. Recent and current lines include:
- PRIN (the standard line) — open to all eligible universities and research institutions, covering all disciplinary areas via subject-based evaluation panels.
- PRIN Hybrid — a variant call format introduced alongside the standard PRIN 2026 round, with its own dedicated evaluation guidelines published by MUR.
- PRIN AFAM — a parallel track specifically for AFAM institutions (conservatories, academies of fine arts, and related higher-education bodies), run under separate eligibility and evaluation rules from the university-facing line.
- PRIN PNRR — a round funded through Italy’s Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR), the national plan implementing the EU’s NextGenerationEU recovery funding. The PRIN 2022 PNRR call, for example, funded projects that began in late 2023, run on the same research-unit model as standard PRIN but drawing on PNRR rather than ordinary MUR appropriations.
Because call names and formats change year to year (PRIN 2022, PRIN 2024, PRIN 2026, and so on), research offices tracking PRIN should treat the prin.mur.gov.it portal, not a fixed program description, as the source of truth for which lines are currently open and what their specific rules are for a given round.
Funding amounts and project duration
Budget ceilings and project length are set per call and have varied across rounds, so any figure should be checked against the live bando (call decree) rather than assumed to carry over automatically. As a concrete, verifiable reference point: under the PRIN 2022 round, standard PRIN projects ran for a biennial (24-month) duration with a maximum project cost of €250,000, while the parallel PRIN 2022 PNRR line — funded through the national recovery plan — ran on the same 24-month structure but with a higher ceiling of €300,000 per project. Because the total award is split across every research unit on a project (recall: a minimum of two, at different institutions), the effective budget available to any single unit is a fraction of the headline project ceiling, which matters when scoping what a project can realistically resource per site.
How PRIN proposals are evaluated
PRIN evaluation is organized centrally rather than left to each institution. MUR’s Comitato Nazionale dei Garanti della Ricerca (CNGR) — the National Committee of Research Guarantors, a standing advisory body to the Ministry — sets and updates the general selection criteria and evaluation methodology that govern each PRIN round, and publishes detailed evaluation guidelines alongside every call decree. Actual proposal review is carried out by subject-based Evaluation Committees (Comitati di Valutazione), organized around two dozen disciplinary panels covering the full range of PRIN’s subject areas, each populated with external scientific experts and supported by additional individual peer reviewers as needed. Consistent with the scheme’s three-pillar funding logic described above, panels weigh scientific merit through peer review alongside the co-financing commitment and the multi-unit collaborative structure of each proposal.
Beyond PRIN: MUR’s other national funding channels
PRIN is MUR’s best-known competitive line, but not its only one. Research offices scoping Italian funding more broadly should also be aware of:
- PNRR (Mission 4: Istruzione e Ricerca) — Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan channeled substantial one-off, EU-backed investment through MUR into research infrastructure, doctoral training expansion, and dedicated project calls (including PRIN PNRR, above) across the plan’s implementation period.
- Fondo Italiano per la Scienza (FIS) — a MUR-administered fund aimed at high-risk, high-reward frontier research, run as a separate competitive line from PRIN with its own eligibility and evaluation process.
- Dipartimenti di Eccellenza (Departments of Excellence) — multi-year, non-competitive-application funding awarded to top-ranked university departments based on results of ANVUR’s national VQR (Valutazione della Qualità della Ricerca) research assessment exercise, rather than an individual project proposal.
ANVUR itself — Italy’s national agency for the evaluation of the university and research system — is a separate body from MUR and from PRIN’s own CNGR-run evaluation process; it runs the VQR exercise that feeds into department-level and institutional funding decisions rather than reviewing individual PRIN proposals.
What this means for research offices working with Italian partners
For a non-Italian institution supporting a researcher who wants to join or lead a PRIN research unit, the key structural point is that eligibility runs through the institution, not the individual: a research unit must be hosted at an eligible Italian university, AFAM institution, or research school, and led by a PI affiliated with that institution — nationality of the PI is not itself the eligibility test, affiliation is. That makes PRIN most relevant to international offices in two scenarios: supporting a staff member who holds a joint or visiting appointment at an eligible Italian institution, or coordinating a separate, complementary funding application (for example under the European Research Council or a Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action) alongside an Italian collaborator’s PRIN-funded work. PRIN’s costing model is also worth flagging early in any cross-border collaboration discussion: unlike UK full economic costing (fEC), PRIN awards a fixed project ceiling to be shared and co-financed across research units, not a per-institution overhead-inclusive rate — budget conversations with an Italian PI should start from that structure rather than assume fEC-equivalent terms apply.
Frequently asked questions
What does PRIN stand for?
PRIN stands for Progetti di Ricerca di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale — “Research Projects of Significant National Interest.” It is MUR’s principal competitive, investigator-led funding scheme, open across all research disciplines.
Who is eligible to apply for a PRIN grant?
Eligible applicant institutions are Italian state and recognized private universities, polytechnics, and — through a parallel track — AFAM institutions and specialized research schools. A proposal requires at least two research units, each hosted at a different eligible institution, each led by its own principal investigator.
How much funding does a PRIN project receive, and for how long?
Ceilings and duration are set per call round rather than fixed permanently. Under the PRIN 2022 round, standard projects ran 24 months with a maximum project cost of €250,000; the PNRR-funded PRIN 2022 PNRR line ran on the same 24-month structure with a €300,000 ceiling. Always confirm current figures against the live bando, since these vary by round.
How are PRIN proposals evaluated?
MUR’s Comitato Nazionale dei Garanti della Ricerca (CNGR) sets the evaluation methodology and criteria for each round. Subject-based Evaluation Committees, staffed with external scientific experts, then carry out peer review of proposals, weighing scientific merit alongside the co-financing commitment and multi-unit collaborative structure MUR requires of every project.
Is PRIN the same as Italy’s PNRR (recovery plan) funding?
No. PRIN is MUR’s standing, recurring national grant scheme; PNRR PRIN calls (such as PRIN 2022 PNRR) are a specific, time-limited PRIN line funded through Italy’s EU-backed National Recovery and Resilience Plan rather than MUR’s ordinary annual appropriations. Both use the same research-unit model, but they are funded and tracked separately.
Can researchers outside Italy participate in a PRIN project?
Eligibility is institutional: a research unit must be hosted at an eligible Italian institution and led by an affiliated PI. A PI’s nationality is not itself an eligibility criterion, but the unit — and the funding — sits with the Italian host institution, not with an individual researcher or a foreign institution directly.
How does PRIN compare to Horizon Europe or ERC funding?
PRIN and the European Research Council both fund investigator-led, bottom-up research selected primarily on scientific merit, but PRIN operates at the national level, requires a multi-unit collaborative structure across Italian institutions, and is administered by MUR rather than the European Commission. Italian researchers frequently hold PRIN and EU-level awards (ERC, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, or other Horizon Europe funding) concurrently, since the two operate on separate budgets and separate eligibility rules.
