IT Park Uzbekistan (Software Products and Information Technologies Technopark Directorate) together with the Ministry of Digital Technologies
For the 2026 season the total prize fund is $5 million: $1 million is non-repayable grants shared among 25 winning teams in the early-stage (incubation) track, and the remainder (up to $4 million) is venture investment from the IT Park Ventures fund for the growth-stage and best-startup-project tracks.
In the main tracks, only citizens of Uzbekistan may participate: team members must be aged 18–30, teams must have 3–8 members, and all members must be citizens or permanent residents of Uzbekistan. No formal academic degree is required — any team with a technology project may apply. The hackathon track additionally allows foreign nationals and stateless persons employed by IT Park residents. Participation is free of charge.
Uzbekistan citizens only
Register on the awards.gov.uz portal via OneID, form a team, choose one of the 5 main tracks (or the hackathon), and submit an online application together with a project presentation. Teams that pass the preliminary screening advance to online evaluation and then to an offline Demo Day.
Annual
The competition runs annually; applications are typically accepted in spring–summer (the 2025 season opened on May 14, the 2026 season launched on July 1) and are accepted for the main tracks until August 30, via OneID registration on the awards.gov.uz portal. Exact dates are officially announced each year.
World Bank + Ministry of HESI
The MUNIS project has allocated a total of $50 million (2 components, 5 sub-programs). The main dollar-denominated grant programs are: the Innovation Capabilities Program (ICP) — up to $50,000 for small and medium businesses (SMEs); the Research Commercialization Program (RCP) — a $4 million total fund, up to $150,000 per sub-project; and the Business Investments in R&D Program (BIRD) — a $10 million total fund, up to $600,000 per sub-project (a matching grant). The project also includes the REP and PRIM programs, aimed at strengthening research-institution capacity (their sub-project amounts are announced separately).
IRA + Iran Ministry of Science and Technology
Bilateral co-funding (each country covers the costs of its own participants); no single officially announced amount was found.
Agency for Innovative Development under MHESI
Varies by project type (applied/innovative) and round — curated data suggests up to 500 million UZS per project; officially verified sources show figures ranging up to 1 billion UZS for some one-year innovative-project tracks and a combined 150 million UZS for some applied-project tracks — there is no single official figure; it depends on the specific round ("ScienceUP", "InnoPro", and others). Project duration is up to 3 years for the Science4State programme (some tracks run 1–2 years).