Bial Foundation Grants for Scientific Research 2026/2027: Historical Reference

Bial Foundation Grants for Scientific Research 2026/2027: Historical Reference

Current status

The Bial Foundation’s 2026/2027 Grants for Scientific Research call is closed. The official call announcement gave 31 August 2026 as the application deadline. On the Foundation’s current programme page, the Grants Management System is described as unavailable for new account creation because the programme is not open to applications. The official material reviewed for this update does not announce a successor cycle or give a future deadline. This page is therefore an archive of the closed call, not an invitation to apply now. Do not use the old deadline to plan a new submission. Check the official programme page for a future announcement before preparing an application.

The archive remains useful for researchers who submitted to the call, for institutions reviewing a past proposal, and for prospective applicants who want to understand the programme’s subject areas and structure before a new round is announced. Its terms below describe the 2026/2027 edition. They should not be assumed to govern a future edition: Bial may revise the eligibility conditions, budget, attachments, timetable, and application process when it publishes new rules.

Archived call at a glance

The Foundation describes the programme as support for research into the healthy human being’s physical and mental processes, with special attention to psychophysiology and parapsychology. Its standing programme page says awards can reach €60,000 and that the Scientific Board sets the award amount according to the needs of each project. The 2026/2027 call announcement repeated that maximum. It did not promise that every selected project would receive the ceiling amount.

Research scope in the closed edition

Psychophysiology links psychological processes with bodily or physiological processes. A proposal in this stream needed to make that relationship central to the research question and methods. Relevant work could examine how experience, perception, cognition, emotion, or mental states relate to measurable responses in the body. Applicants needed to describe the population, measurements, research design, and analysis in a way that made the psychophysiological contribution evident. A broad interest in the brain or mind, by itself, would not establish fit if the project lacked a direct psychophysiological component.

Parapsychology was the other named field. The call treated it as an eligible area for scientific investigation rather than limiting support to conventional clinical research. A proposal in this area still needed a clear question, a rigorous method, and a credible plan for analysis and reporting. The subject label alone was not a substitute for a testable design or a research team capable of carrying it out.

The call focused on the healthy human being. The archived eligibility terms excluded clinical or experimental models of human disease and therapy. They also excluded fundamental neuroscience projects without a direct psychophysiological element. Projects whose primary focus was eating behaviour, sexual behaviour, or physical exercise were excluded. These boundaries matter when framing a mixed-topic study: applicants had to show that an eligible research question was the centre of the work, rather than an incidental measure within a project primarily about an excluded topic.

The programme was international. Researchers could apply from any country, individually or as a team, but the application still needed a formal Host Entity. An independent researcher could therefore be the named Principal Investigator without being employed by the host, provided that an institution agreed to support and administer the project under the call’s conditions.

Eligibility and the role of the Host Entity

The 2026/2027 rules named a Principal Investigator for each project and allowed a co-Principal Investigator. The call excluded employees of the Bial Foundation and companies within the Bial Group. Previous or current funding did not automatically bar an application: researchers with an ongoing Bial Foundation grant or a Maria de Sousa Award project could submit, subject to the completion conditions stated in that edition’s rules. The Foundation also reserved discretion concerning applicants who had repeatedly failed to meet their legal or contractual responsibilities under earlier awards.

The Host Entity was more than a mailing address. It had to commit to providing the technical and logistical resources required for the work, support the project if selected, sign the Research Funding Agreement, and receive the grant payments. The Principal Investigator did not need to hold an employment contract with the host, but the host’s agreement to carry out the work was essential. Applicants coordinating a team across institutions needed to decide which eligible entity would take the formal host role and how the collaboration would function around it.

These arrangements have practical consequences. A host must understand the study, approve the use of its facilities and resources, and accept the responsibilities in the funding agreement. An investigator should involve the relevant research office or institutional signatory while drafting, rather than treating host approval as a form to collect after the scientific case is finished. Because the call is closed, this is a lesson for future planning only; the next edition may change the declaration or institutional requirements.

Award size and budget planning

The maximum award in the 2026/2027 call was €60,000 per project. The Foundation determined the final amount in light of the project’s needs, so a request at the ceiling was not an entitlement. A defensible budget would connect each cost to the methods, timetable, staffing, participant work, and expected outputs. Applicants needed to distinguish a necessary cost from a desirable one and to show how the project could deliver its aims within the funding requested.

The archived call information described eligible expenditure including human resources and researcher salaries, consultants or external expertise, participant compensation, and publication fees. It allowed travel or missions up to 10% of the total budget and equipment or software rental up to 50%. Hardware purchases, overhead or indirect costs, and tuition fees were ineligible. These distinctions are especially relevant to university applicants, whose standard budgets may automatically add overhead or assume equipment can be purchased. The project budget needed to follow the call rules rather than an institution’s default template.

The budget also included a suggested payment plan with at least three instalments, with the final instalment representing at least 10% of the total. Payments were made to the Host Entity, not distributed directly by the Foundation among collaborators. Applicants working across more than one institution therefore needed an internal agreement on how the host would administer resources. For an awarded project, expense records and scientific and financial reporting formed part of grant management; approval of the final report affected the final payment.

Application materials and submission route

Applications for the archived edition were submitted in English through BF-GMS. The Foundation’s programme page explains that BF-GMS is the system for managing both applications and supported projects. It currently says that new accounts cannot be created because the research grants programme is not open, so the system should not be presented as a live application option for this closed round.

The 2026/2027 application called for a project description with specific aims, team-member CVs, expected output indicators, a budget and payment plan, and a declaration of support from the Host Entity. Each CV was limited to four pages and had to be in English. Where applicable, applicants included proof that the project had been submitted to an Ethics Committee. Optional figures, images, or graphs could be attached within the stated file-size limit. Researchers should consult the regulation and application guide linked through the official programme page for the exact requirements that governed that edition.

For a future cycle, a sensible preparation sequence is to establish scientific fit, identify the Principal Investigator and any co-Principal Investigator, and secure a willing Host Entity. Then draft the aims and methods, map every proposed cost against the eligible categories, prepare concise English CVs, plan the expected outputs, and determine whether ethics review applies. The final step would be to follow the new edition’s own instructions in BF-GMS and submit before its published deadline. This sequence is general preparation based on the archived process; it is not a substitute for future rules, and the current call cannot be submitted to.

Review, project delivery, and record keeping

The 2026/2027 call information described assessment by the Foundation’s Scientific Board and notification of decisions to applicants within four months of the application deadline. The result for that edition should be checked through the Foundation’s own communications. A closed call page cannot establish whether a particular project was funded, and this archive does not imply any individual result.

For a project supported under the archived rules, the application was the basis for the funded work. Clear aims mattered because the research, expenditures, and reporting needed to remain consistent with the approved plan and the funding agreement. Project teams were expected to keep records that connected costs to the research and to provide scientific and financial progress and final reports through the Foundation’s management system. Researchers should retain their own submission copy and correspondence; BF-GMS is described by the Foundation as the system for managing supported projects as well as new applications when a programme is available.

Research involving people also requires careful handling of ethics, consent, privacy, and sensitive data. The archived application asked for ethics-committee submission evidence where applicable, while the agreement governed the responsibilities of awarded teams. A team should coordinate with its institution on applicable ethics and data rules before recruitment or collection begins. This is sound project administration, but applicants to any future edition must read that edition’s agreement and official instructions rather than assuming every clause is unchanged.

What prospective applicants should do now

There is no open application route for this call. The BF-GMS notice on the official programme page says the programme is not open to applications, and the official material reviewed for this update does not provide a next-round date. Researchers interested in this funding should monitor the Foundation’s Grants for Scientific Research page and its official news announcements. A future edition should be treated as a new competition: verify its subject scope, eligibility, award ceiling, permitted costs, forms, and deadline from its current regulation before spending time on a submission.

While waiting, prospective teams can develop a research question that fits the programme’s stated interest in the healthy human being and the named fields. They can identify concrete physiological measures for psychophysiology projects, or build a rigorous empirical design for parapsychology work. They can also discuss hosting arrangements with a suitable institution and prepare a project outline. They should avoid making commitments based on the closed edition’s timing or assuming that its detailed terms will carry forward unchanged.

Researchers who applied to the 2026/2027 call can use the archived terms to orient themselves, but should rely on their submitted application, the regulation attached to that call, and direct correspondence from the Foundation for case-specific questions. The Foundation lists [email protected] and +351 229 866 150 as contact details on its programme page. The official programme page is the best place to check for new announcements and current system access.

Official source

The Bial Foundation Grants for Scientific Research programme page describes the research programme, award ceiling, BF-GMS, and current application status. The Foundation’s announcement of the 2026/2027 call records that edition’s scope, maximum amount, and 31 August 2026 deadline. Both pages should be revisited before relying on any archived detail for a later edition.