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HU OSA	101 C
Authority entry:	Research Support Scheme

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HU OSA 101

Mandate, functions and sphere of activity

The Research Support Scheme (RSS) was established in 1991 to support researchers from Central and Eastern Europe in the social sciences and humanities. It was variously governed by the Central European University (CEU), from which it was originally something of an offshoot, and by the Higher Education Support Program (HESP) of the Open Society Institute, Budapest (OSI). The RSS was run by a committee, which was chaired in turn by Gabriel Fragnière, Andrzej Rychard and Terence Daintith. Daily operations depended very much upon the Director, Sylvie Rohanová, who was with the organization from its inception until 2000.
The RSS offered grants in the social sciences and humanities predominantly to researchers from post-socialist countries. To this end the RSS Committee defined particular priorities within almost 20 different disciplines each year. From the very beginning of its existence the RSS earned a reputation for supporting only the best scholars from the region. All applications were reviewed by at least two external scholars and underwent three rounds of selection. Despite the rigorous selection procedure, the popularity of the RSS increased exponentially over the years.
The purpose of the organization was expressed in its title, namely the support of research. The central part of the RSS's mandate was twofold: firstly, to examine the state of research in the social sciences and humanities; and secondly, to trace the evolution of the cognitive fields in response to the changing economic, social, political and cultural context and to institutional changes.
At the end of 1999, Mr. George Soros, founder of the RSS, decided to discontinue his funding of the Research Support Scheme. This decision was confirmed at the meeting of the Open Society Institute in Budapest in November 1999. In accordance with the decision, the last RSS grants were given in 2000. In addition to this, the Open Society Institute committed itself to honor all existing RSS grants through to their contracted end.
Starting with about 900 applications in the first year of its existence, the RSS received over 1,700 applications for each of its last three calls for applications. During the nine years of its existence, it disbursed more than $22,000,000. The last RSS grants were awarded in June 2000 for periods of between 6 and 24 months.

Rules or conventions

ISAAR(CPF): International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families General Intenational Standard Archival Description; OSA Internal Rules.

Dates of description

Described by Pavol Šalamon, November 8, 2006
Online version updated 19 April 2012