Zambia’s National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is the country’s statutory research-funding and research-regulation body, established under the Science and Technology Act No. 26 of 1997 and operating under the Ministry of Technology and Science. Through the National Research Fund (NRF), NSTC is Zambia’s main channel for competitive, government-backed research grants, alongside a smaller, dedicated Science, Technology and Innovation Youth Fund (STIYF). This guide covers NSTC’s statutory mandate, how the National Research Fund is structured and who can apply, its membership in the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI), and how it compares to equivalent national research funds elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa.
What NSTC Is and What It Does
NSTC was created by the Science and Technology Act No. 26 of 1997 as a statutory body — a government-established public authority with its own legal mandate, rather than a unit inside a ministry or a private foundation. Its mandate is organized around five functional pillars: promotion of science, technology and innovation (STI); regulation of research conducted in Zambia; mobilization of resources for research and STI activities; coordination of research efforts across the national system; and provision of policy guidance to government on STI matters. That combination — funder, regulator, and policy coordinator in one body — is a common pattern among Sub-Saharan African national science councils, and it distinguishes NSTC from funding-only agencies such as a typical Western research council.
Statutory Basis and Institutional Structure
NSTC sits under Zambia’s Ministry of Technology and Science. Its research-regulation function means that, separate from any funding relationship, research conducted in or on Zambia by Zambian and non-Zambian researchers generally requires NSTC clearance or registration — a research administrator advising on a Zambia-based project should treat NSTC as a compliance touchpoint even where no NSTC funding is involved. This dual funder-and-regulator role is a structural feature research administrators outside Zambia should not assume applies to every national research fund; some equivalent African bodies, such as Ghana’s newer Ghana National Research Fund (GNRF), are funding-only agencies without a parallel research-clearance mandate.
The National Research Fund: Streams, Eligibility, and Grant Parameters
The National Research Fund is a government initiative implemented by NSTC to support basic and applied research aligned with Zambia’s national development priorities. Per NSTC’s own published guidance, the Fund operates two broad streams:
- Solicited funding — research aligned with specific calls for proposals, ministerial directives, and collaborative or multi-institution projects issued against a defined thematic call.
- Unsolicited funding — postgraduate research support, researcher-initiated proposals, and dissemination or research-mobility grants that are not tied to a specific call.
Priority thematic areas span agriculture, livestock and fisheries, mining, tourism, manufacturing, environmental sustainability, energy, artificial intelligence, and health and public health — reflecting Zambia’s national development priorities rather than a narrow disciplinary scope. Eligibility requires a Zambian principal investigator holding at least a Master’s degree, applying through a public or private research and development institution with institutional endorsement; early-career researchers, women, and differently-abled scientists are specifically encouraged to apply. Applications run through NSTC’s online grants management system on an annual cycle that typically spans March through December.
Grant budgeting rules are specific and worth flagging to a first-time applicant or an institution reviewing a Zambian sub-award: equipment costs are capped at 40% of the total budget, institutional administrative costs are capped at 5%, and salaries, audit fees, and unrelated insurance costs are ineligible expenses. Disbursement is staged against milestones, with inception, progress, and completion reports required at each stage — a post-award compliance structure similar in shape to Uniform-Guidance-style federal award administration, though governed by NSTC’s own guidelines rather than 2 CFR 200.
How Much the Fund Has Disbursed
NSTC and Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI) coverage have reported that the National Research Fund disbursed more than K21.3 million (Zambian kwacha) across roughly 30 funded research projects between 2020 and 2026, alongside support for around 45 postgraduate students. Research administrators should treat this as NSTC’s own reported figure rather than an independently audited public total — CASRAI has not located a standalone financial statement or audited annual report publishing the same number, so it should be cited as NSTC-reported rather than independently verified. For comparison purposes, treat the National Research Fund as a modest, still-maturing national fund by international standards — smaller in scale than flagship funds such as South Africa’s National Research Foundation — consistent with NSTC’s broader positioning as a still-developing science-granting council within the SGCI network (see below).
Science, Technology and Innovation Youth Fund (STIYF)
Alongside the National Research Fund, NSTC also administers the Science, Technology and Innovation Youth Fund (STIYF), a separate, youth-targeted grant window aimed at young innovators and early-career researchers rather than the general research population the NRF serves. Research administrators supporting a youth-led or student innovation project in Zambia should check STIYF eligibility separately from the main NRF call, as the two funds run distinct application windows and eligibility criteria under the same NSTC administrative umbrella.
NSTC and the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI)
NSTC has been a member of the Science Granting Councils Initiative since the initiative’s founding in 2015. SGCI is a multi-funder program supporting science granting councils across Sub-Saharan Africa to strengthen their capacity to design and manage research funding instruments, monitor and evaluate research investment, and engage with government and the private sector on research-to-development linkages. For an international funder or partner institution evaluating NSTC as a counterpart, SGCI membership is a useful signal: it places NSTC within a peer network of national science councils undergoing broadly similar institution-building work, and SGCI-affiliated capacity-building resources (grant management systems, M&E frameworks, public-private partnership guidance) are part of what NSTC has drawn on to develop its own systems, including its online grants management platform.
How NSTC Compares to Other African National Research Funds
Zambia’s NSTC/NRF sits alongside a growing set of national research-funding bodies research administrators working across Sub-Saharan Africa increasingly need to track individually, since none share a common application system or funding cycle:
- Ghana — the Ghana National Research Fund (GNRF), established by the GNRF Act, 2020 (Act 1056), only reached its first capital allocation in 2026 — newer and less operationally mature than NSTC, which has been running competitive calls since well before 2020.
- Kenya — the National Research Fund (NRF Kenya), Kenya’s statutory research funder under its 2013 Science, Technology and Innovation Act, operates a comparable solicited/unsolicited grant structure through its own Grants Management System.
Across all three, the pattern is consistent: a statutory national research fund, government-seeded rather than endowment-funded, running competitive calls at a national-development-priority level well below the scale of major bilateral or multilateral funders — useful context for any institution weighing NSTC funding against, for example, IDRC or SGCI-adjacent donor programs active in the same region.
Disambiguating “NSTC”
“NSTC” is a heavily reused acronym in research administration and should not be assumed to mean Zambia’s council without context. Distinct bodies using the same initials include:
- Zambia’s National Science and Technology Council (this guide) — a statutory funder and research regulator under the Ministry of Technology and Science.
- Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Council — see CASRAI’s separate guide, NSTC (Taiwan): National Science and Technology Council Explained, an entirely distinct national funding agency.
- The US National Science and Technology Council, a White House-level coordinating body operating under the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), which does not itself make research grants.
When citing “NSTC” in any cross-border grants correspondence or a comparative funding table, spell out the country on first use to avoid ambiguity.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Zambia’s NSTC the same as Taiwan’s NSTC?
No. They are entirely separate national bodies that happen to share an acronym and a broadly similar name (National Science and Technology Council). Zambia’s NSTC was established in 1997 as a statutory research funder and regulator; Taiwan’s NSTC is a distinct national funding agency covered in CASRAI’s separate guide to Taiwan’s NSTC.
Who is eligible to apply to Zambia’s National Research Fund?
A Zambian principal investigator holding at least a Master’s degree, applying through a public or private research and development institution that provides institutional endorsement. Early-career researchers, women, and differently-abled scientists are specifically encouraged to apply.
Does NSTC fund youth or student researchers separately from the main National Research Fund?
Yes — through the Science, Technology and Innovation Youth Fund (STIYF), a separate grant window with its own eligibility criteria and application cycle, administered alongside but distinct from the main NRF.
Is NSTC only a funder, or does it also regulate research in Zambia?
Both. NSTC’s statutory mandate under the Science and Technology Act No. 26 of 1997 includes regulation of research conducted in Zambia in addition to funding and resource mobilization — research administrators should treat NSTC as a compliance touchpoint for Zambia-based projects even where NSTC funding is not involved.
How does NSTC/NRF compare in scale to Ghana’s GNRF or Kenya’s NRF?
All three are government-seeded statutory national research funds operating at a modest scale relative to major bilateral or multilateral funders. NSTC is the most institutionally established of the three, having run competitive funding cycles for longer than Ghana’s GNRF, which only reached its first capital allocation in 2026. See CASRAI’s guides to the Ghana National Research Fund and NRF Kenya for detail on each.
For the broader lifecycle context these national funds fit into — proposal development, award compliance, and international funding-body conventions — see CASRAI’s grants management pillar.
