BIST Ignite Programme

The BIST Ignite Programme awards excellent, multidisciplinary projects within the BIST community. The call is competitive and successful projects always involve new collaborations among researchers within the BIST centres, share knowledge among different scientific fields, and address novel research topics.

An external scientific committee selects the winning teams, who have ten months to develop their ideas. Projects then move to the second phase of the programme, where the two most promising projects receive BIST Ignite Awards, which come with an additional funding to continue research.

The BIST Ignite Programme was established in 2016 to promote new multidisciplinary collaborations and support innovative projects ideas through their first stages of research, preparing them for application to external funding agencies and international success. To date, 38 projects have been funded and 14 have received BIST Ignite Awards. A total of 1,310,000€ have been granted and more than 200 researchers have already been involved. One project has received the prestigious “la Caixa” Health Research Grant worth one million euros.

The call for proposals for the BIST Ignite 8th Edition (Seed Phase) closed on 18 August 2025.

BIST Ignite Programme – 8th Edition Call Guideliness.

Details about the last calls can be downloaded below (each document contains information about both the seed and award stage)

Igniting Multidisciplinary Research

Video produced for the BIST Forum 2025 (February)

Success stories

Facts and figures

Figures represent total numbers since programme’s inauguration (2016-2025)

Contact for further information

For further questions or clarifications about the programme or application and evaluation procedures, please send an email to ignite@bist.eu