Five pillars and a questionnaire: Cyprus is letting the ecosystem design its 2028–2034 research funding, and the window shuts on 2 November

The Research and Innovation Foundation has opened a public consultation on its proposed Research and Innovation Funding Portfolio for 2028–2034, and it is asking a bigger question than usual. This is not feedback on a single call or a programme's small print: RIF says the consultation is about the overall portfolio design and its underlying intervention logic — which instruments should exist at all, and what they are supposed to achieve.

The proposed architecture rests on five interconnected pillars: Research, Knowledge Transfer, Innovation, Infrastructure & Skills, and Internationalisation. The stated objectives behind them run across the whole pipeline — developing talent, strengthening research excellence, supporting research infrastructure, moving knowledge into commercialisation, backing innovative entrepreneurship, mobilising private investment, and improving international competitiveness.

Participation is through an online questionnaire, with a presentation and a description document published alongside it so respondents can see the proposed structure before answering. The invitation is open to all stakeholders in the research and innovation ecosystem, not only to institutions that already hold RIF grants.

The deadline for submissions is 2 November 2026.

Why this is worth half an hour for anyone who builds things here: the 2028–2034 portfolio is the period in which today's student teams and weekend prototypes will be looking for their first real money. RIF has spent 2026 widening its own room for manoeuvre — it recently went from three to ten of the EU state aid provisions it can fund under, which is what lets it pay for things that are not strictly research projects — and the PRE-SEED programme drew a record 284 proposals. The instruments that exist in 2028 are being argued about now, by whoever shows up.

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