Grants
Grants programme for scientific research
Funding for Scientific Research - 2022/2023 (Applications Closed)
With the aim of encouraging research into the healthy human being, both from the physical and spiritual point of view and particularly in fields largely still unexplored but which warrant further scientific analysis, BIAL Foundation now opens a new call of its Grants Programme for Scientific Research with the following characteristics:
1. Scope and purpose - Only the fields of Psychophysiology and Parapsychology shall be covered by this Programme. The goals to be met by the applicants shall be set out by the Research Project under application.
2. Addressees - All scientific researchers will be admitted as applicants, either individually or in groups, except those working for BIAL Foundation or for any of the companies belonging to BIAL Group. The current Grant Holders (principal investigator or co-principal investigator) of BIAL Foundation can also be admitted as applicants; however, they shall only benefit from new grants under this Programme after the successful completion of the work comprised in the scope of previous awarded grants.
3. Duration and commencement - The total duration of the grants under the Program shall not exceed 3 years and shall commence between 1st of January and 31st of October 2023.
4. Total amount and payment’s periodicity - The approved applications shall benefit from grants with a total amount up to €60.000 (sixty thousand euros). The specific amount shall be fixed at BIAL Foundation’s sole discretion in accordance with the needs of the Research Project under application.
The amount awarded to each Research Project shall be understood as a maximum amount, which shall be paid by BIAL Foundation upon verification of the documents of expenses submitted, under the terms of the Regulation.
The payments shall be made annually or bi-annually. This periodicity shall be defined in accordance with the schedule of the Research Project.
5. Applications - Applications should be submitted in English no later than 31st of August 2022, in accordance with the Regulation of Grants for Scientific Research of BIAL Foundation, via the BIAL Foundation Grants Management System (BF-GMS). Applications regarding the following projects will not be considered eligible:
a) Projects from Clinical or Experimental Models of Human Disease and Therapy;
b) Projects whose main scope is eating behaviour, sexual behaviour, physical exercise or fundamental neuroscience.
6. Assessment of applications and notification of decision - Applications shall be assessed by the Scientific Board of BIAL Foundation. The decision shall be disclosed, by notice to the applicants, within 4 (four) months from the final deadline for submission of applications.
7. Applicable Regulation – The submission of an application implies and means the full acceptance by the applicant of the terms and conditions set out in this announcement and in the Regulation of Grants for Scientific Research of BIAL Foundation, which governs the present call.
BIAL Foundation reserves the right to refuse the application of former Grant Holders who have repeatedly violated their legal and contractual obligations with BIAL Foundation.
The Regulation of Grants for Scientific Research of the BIAL Foundation is available below:
Announcement Grants Management System
The Bial Foundation Grants Management System (BF-GMS) denotes the restricted access components of the Bial Foundation Grants Management System and offers functionality to researchers and reviewers involved in the BF system of Grants for Scientific Research.
Here you can register to the website, complete your profile, create and submit a new application when a new Financial Support programme is available, as well as manage supported projects since 2014 – e.g. submit scientific and financial progress/final reports.
To use all the functionalities of the system you should first register through the link below. After registering to the website you will find PDF guide that will help you navigating through the System.
We remind you that you can only register once in the BF-GMS registration system. If you have lost and forgotten your login credentials please use the automated recovery tool.
If you still have any doubts, please contact fundacao@bial.com or +351 229 866 150.
At the moment, it is not possible to create an account in the BF-GMS, since the Grants Programme for Scientific Research is not open to applications.
GRANTS
In 1994 the BIAL Foundation launched a Grants programme for scientific research with the aim of encouraging the research into healthy human being’s physical and mental processes, namely in fields still largely unexplored but which warrant further scientific analysis, as Psychophysiology and Parapsychology.Since its launch, applications to the BIAL Foundation Grants have been increasing. Up to now 775 projects have been supported, involving 1624 researchers from 29 countries.
The approved applications will benefit from grants up to a maximum amount of €60,000. The amount to be granted is fixed by the Scientific Board according to the needs of each project.
The research funded by the BIAL Foundation from 1994 to July 2022 has resulted in the publication of 2036 papers, 1632 of which in indexed journals (in Scopus or Web of Science) and 1404 in impact factor journals. Almost half of the papers were published in journals that ranked in the first quartile (Q1) in their subject area. By July 2022, 1472 papers were cited on average 24 times.
Among the researchers supported by the BIAL Foundation, is worth highlighting the presence of scientists from prestigious universities from the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, France, Australia, Russia, Spain and Japan, among many others.
Testimonials about some Supported Projects
Below you can find some testimonials of the supported researchers
Rui Alves and Teresa Jacques
Mind-Body Interactions in Writing (M-BW)
Nolween Marie
Phenomenological experience and neurophysiological correlates of shamanic trance in healthy individuals
São Luís Castro
The impact of music training on reading and mathematical abilities of normal and reading disabled children
Anna Ciaunica
Estranged from oneself, estranged from the others
Dean Radin
Psi, nonlocality and entangled photons
Stephen Badham
Age-related changes in brain
Sofia Machado
Producing a Near-Death Experience like through hypnosis
Marilyn Schlitz
The role of beliefs in psi in a precognition study
Christine Simmonds-Moore
Correlates and nature of subjective apparitional experiences
Julie Beischel
Correlating accurate intuition with learning styles and sensory modality preferences
Clara Pretus
A neuroimaging study of religious and nationalist radicals
Arnaud Delorme
A study about anomalous psychological phenomena
Nicholas Furl
Brain encoding of the distinctive movements of facial expressions
Thilo Hinterberger
Paced Breathing
Amir Raz
Consciousness training
Jennifer Kim Penberthy
Extraordinary experiences
Tal Dotan Ben-Soussan
Consciousness and selfhood
Lénia Amaral
Episodic memory enhancement
Mark Blagrove
Electrophysiological correlation
Helané Wahbeh
Full-trance channeling
Aaron Koralek
Dopamine in behavior & action
John Kruth
Mood and emotion
Joana Coutinho
Empathy in couples
Miguel Farias
Neural stimulation & paranormal
Jason Braithwaite
The dissociated self
Julie Beischel
Information reception in mediums
Stefan Schmidt
Libet revisited
Catherine French
Conditional Foxp2 deletion
Veena Kumari
The mindful eye
Etzel Cardeña
Alterations of consciousnessNumbers & Statistics
Throughout several editions, the Grants for Scientific Research of the BIAL Foundation have been increasingly recognized. In the first edition of Grants, in 1994, the BIAL Foundation received a total of 48 applications and supported 10 projects. Since then, the number of applications has increased significantly and in the last edition of 2020, 395 research projects involving 1102 researchers were received, out of which 84 projects were funded. The graph shows the percentage of the funded projects according to the total number of applications received in each edition.
In total, in the 14 editions, 775 research projects were supported, involving 1624 researchers from 29 countries. The supported projects are equivalent to 26% of total applications, and are divided in the fields of Psychophysiology (51%), Parapsychology (31%) and both (18%).
Reflecting the increasing awareness of the BIAL Foundation, supporting research in psychophysiology and parapsychology within the international scientific community, the most significant numbers of applications, apart from Portugal, come from the UK, USA, and Italy.
The research funded by the BIAL Foundation in the areas of Psychophysiology and Parapsychology from 1994 to July 2022 has resulted in the publication of 1632 articles in indexed journals (in Scopus or Web of Science), 1404 of which in journals with an average impact factor of 4.1 and 301 in journals with an impact factor greater than 5. By July 2022, there was a substantial number of citations (35.256), with 486 publications cited more than 20 times.
Globally, the researchers supported by the BIAL Foundation published 3190 scientific papers, chapters, book chapters, conference abstracts and master and doctoral theses.
A study conducted by Cordeiro, Marinho, Guedes and Sousa, presented at the 13th Symposium of the BIAL Foundation, held in Porto from April 6 to 9, 2022, gives an overview of the changes in the number of publications from 1994 to March 2022 and can be accessed at the following link. In addition, the Foundation provides an open online database that can be accessed by the scientific community and by the general public here.
Supported Projects
Find here the lists of supported projects per Grant Edition.