The government will adopt a five-year contract programme to define the scope of the nation’s science enterprise for each successive five-year period, with differing levels of support across research areas and mandatory evaluation of all fields. The recurring agreement is intended to set the priorities and parameters that will govern scientific activity and public support for the duration of each cycle.
Under the planned framework, a contract programme signed every five years will articulate what the government designates as the scope of Science for that period. Framing scientific activity through a periodic, formal programme creates a multi‑year horizon for planning, allocating resources, and setting performance expectations. By tying the programme to a fixed five‑year rhythm, the approach aims to provide predictability and a common reference point for policymakers, research institutions, and funding bodies over a medium-term timeframe.
The programme will not treat all areas of research equally. Some fields will be singled out to receive greater emphasis or support, while others will receive comparatively different levels of backing. Making differential allocations across disciplines is a mechanism for prioritizing particular challenges, technologies, or sectors that the government deems strategically important during the upcoming cycle. That differentiation can affect how funding, infrastructure, and administrative attention are distributed across universities, research centres, and collaborative initiatives.
Despite the variation in support, the plan specifies that every area of research will be subject to evaluation. Universal evaluation is intended to create accountability across the research landscape and to generate evidence on how public investments translate into outputs, outcomes, and longer‑term impact. Evaluative findings are likely to inform subsequent contract decisions by identifying strengths to sustain, gaps to address, and areas where adjustments in emphasis or resourcing are warranted.
Embedding evaluation into each five‑year cycle establishes a feedback loop between defined priorities and performance assessment. With the next contract period commencing after the government’s signature, the outcomes and assessments from the current cycle can be reviewed and used to shape future priorities and resource allocations. This cyclical process can enable course corrections and provide a structured basis for updating the scope of Science in response to emerging scientific opportunities or societal needs.
The five‑year contract model also carries implications for research planning and institutional strategy. Research organisations and individual investigators will face incentives to align proposals and projects with the priorities indicated in the contract programme and to demonstrate measurable progress that will withstand evaluation. Administrative and management practices within funding agencies and universities may evolve to meet the programme’s monitoring and reporting requirements, and to make performance visible for the evaluations that will accompany future contract renewals.
What follows next is the implementation of the current plan through the forthcoming signature of the programme and the operationalisation of its provisions. When the government finalises a contract programme, the details of priorities, resource distribution, timelines, and evaluation modalities for that five‑year period will determine how the stated framework affects day‑to‑day research activity. Stakeholders across the scientific system will therefore look to the signed programme to understand the specific criteria and expectations that will govern the coming cycle, and to prepare for the evaluations that will be applied to all research areas at the cycle’s conclusion.