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Fondap Program

The Fund for Research Centers of Excellence, FONDAP,  was established in 1997, out of the necessity of creating and maintaining scientific research centers of excellence in Chile. These centers should encourage team work for researchers in subject areas in which national science has reached a high level of development. The goal is producing a qualitative change in science, and in the training of young researchers in their respective fields.

During the first stage of this program, which was originally named Fund for Advanced Research in Priority Areas, Fondap financed two large projects in Applied Mathematics and Oceanography, and in Marine Biology. Beginning 1999, the program was modified, in order to establish centers of excellence for advanced research. The centers were part of a non–profit institution, and received scientists who had a proven experience in research, and who participated in teaching graduate courses for Doctorate programs. The institution provides its full support as a counterpart for the center for the duration of the program.

GOALS:

The goals of the FONDAP centers of excellence are:

  1. Developing research of excellence;
  2. Fostering associative research, promoting interaction among researchers, graduate students, post–doctoral scholars, and international scientists;
  3. Training advanced human capital, through its incorporation into the high level scientific research that is proposed in this project;
  4. Establishing national and international collaboration networks; and
  5. Disseminating results to the scientific community and to society.

Mission

The mission of the FONDAP Program is to develop high impact centers of scientific research of excellence, in the framework of the priority areas that provide solutions for Chile’s most pressing problems, and that are geared towards the establishment and consolidation of research teams. Projects must have a multi¬disciplinary approach and must contribute to basic research of excellence in the priority area in which they are included. This must be accomplished through the partnership of Chilean and international researchers at centers of excellence that should become a worldwide reference. The centers must attain a high level of development, become integrated in well–known international networks, count on a significant number of researchers with a demonstrated level of productivity, and make a significant scientific contribution to one of the problems that Chile faces and that have been pointed out in each competitive call.