Competitive Research Programme

Who qualifies

• Participating institutions for Lead and Team Principal Investigator(s) must be a public Institute of Higher Learning, public healthcare institution, A*STAR Research Institute, CREATE research entity, or a research institute affiliated with the Autonomous Universities/A*STAR, with adequate research infrastructure.
• Private-sector and other entities cannot lead a CRP proposal; they may only participate as Collaborator(s).
• Lead PI and Team PI(s) must hold a primary and/or joint appointment at an eligible institution, with a minimum time commitment of 9 months per calendar year in Singapore, and must be salaried by their affiliated institution rather than primarily supported through project funding.
• Lead PI and Team PI(s) must be accomplished PIs with a track record of leadership in coordinating research programmes, mentoring research teams and producing productive research outcomes.
• Lead PIs who currently hold an active CRP grant may only submit a new CRP proposal after their existing grant's Mid-Term Review has received a satisfactory assessment.
• CRP research must demonstrate scientific rigour, novelty and ambition beyond the current state-of-the-art, be motivated by an important need or problem rather than solely curiosity, and articulate knowledge advancement and meaningful real-world applications.

What it funds

• R&D, product development, prototyping, IP

Recorded cap: S$10,000,000.

CRP: up to S$10M per proposal including indirect costs, for 3 to 5 years. Frontier CRP: up to S$2M including indirect costs, for 3 to 5 years. Thematic CRP: S$2M to S$4M including indirect costs, for 3 to 5 years.

Payment: Not stated on official pages.

How to apply

Researchers submit proposals bottom-up. Visit the Research Grants Portal (RGP) CRP page to find out more; it provides eligibility, call periods and call-related documents but does not state a submission workflow.

The NRF page points to RGP. RGP carries eligibility, call windows and a Call Information Sheet plus two application templates, but no step-by-step submission or claim workflow. The F-CRP sub-scheme has a two-year stage-gated review. Its helpdesk and FAQ captures remain browser-incomplete.

1. Researchers submit proposals bottom-up.
2. Visit the Research Grants Portal (RGP) to find out more.

Documents

• Attachment 1 - Stage 1 Annex Template — Listed as a CRP call-related document; the vault text does not expose its file format or URL.
• Attachment 2 - Full Proposal Template — Listed as a CRP call-related document; the vault text does not expose its file format or URL.

Contact: NRF_CRP@nrf.gov.sg

Application window: CRP36: 14 Sep 2026 (9am) to 9 Nov 2026 (4pm). The separate 2026 Frontier CRP call ran 23 Mar 2026 (9am) to 18 May 2026 (4pm); the Thematic CRP call is to be announced.

Opens: 2026-09-14

Closes: 2026-11-09