Global Research Council

About GRC

Global Research Council (GRC) is a virtual organization comprised of the heads of science and engineering funding agencies from around the world, dedicated to promote the sharing of data and best practices for high-quality collaboration among funding agencies worldwide.

The worldwide growth of public support for research has presented an opportunity for countries large and small to work in concert across national borders. Cooperation and collaboration can enhance the quality of science, avoid unnecessary duplication, provide economies of scale, and address issues that can only be solved by working together. Research funding agencies have a responsibility to meet these objectives on behalf of the research communities.

GRC members meet once a year in an Annual Meeting whose date and location are determined by the GRC Governing Board. First GRC Meeting was held in 2012, hosted by U.S. National Science Foundation. This meeting was actually called Global Summit on Merit Review and one of its end results was launching Global Research Council. Next GRC Annual Meetings were held in Germany (2013), China (2014), Japan (2015), India (2016), Canada (2017), Russia (2018), and Brazil (2019).

Besides the Annual Meetings, GRC members also have some regional meetings throughout the year. GRC member countries are divided into 5 regions – Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East/ North Africa, and Sub-Sahara Africa. Members of each region have meetings of their own, around the topics that are announced by GRC Programme Committee and which are to be discussed in the upcoming Annual Meeting.

INSF in GRC

Iran National Science Foundation (INSF) has been a member of GRC since 2015. A member of the Asia-Pacific region, INSF has participated in several regional and annual GRC Meetings and hosted the 2018 Asian-Pacific Regional Meeting in Tehran. The priceless opportunity of communicating and cooperating with other research funding agencies can help build a world-class research landscape, which is one of the six-fold aims of GRC. INSF authorities aim to benefit from the best practices and actions discussed at GRC meetings and enhance their support process for research and education.