According to OECD data, there are about 4,000 scientists per 1,000,000 inhabitants in developed countries, and in ČR an estimated 10% of them are engaged in medical research (the share of the state budget going to medical research). This would mean that around 4,000 scientists could be involved in medical research in our country. Traditionally, the Czech Republic has had a significant presence in cancer research, cardiovascular disease research, as well as neuroscience and mental illness. It is in these areas that the Czech Republic performs very well in terms of the quality of research and appears to be above average in international statistics.

The funding that makes research possible at ČR is essentially twofold. There is the so-called institutional support, which is based on a state contribution to a specific research organisation to make it sustainable, to create a quality infrastructure and research environment for scientists, and partly to support their research activities. The more important one is the so-called earmarked support, which allows funding to address specific research questions. Under this support, scientists seek funding for a specific research project and must succeed in a public competition with others.

The Agency for Health Research of the Czech Republic (AZV ČR ) is the dominant provider of special-purpose support for applied health research in the Czech Republic, which is carried out mainly at universities, teaching hospitals, specialised institutes or institutes of the Academy of Sciences ČR. AZV ČR launches one public competition each year, in which it evaluates an average of 450 project proposals and prepares an average of 1200 reports and opponents' opinions. Approximately 20% of the submitted projects are supported, with AZV ČR providing up to 100% funding or support rate. It distributes 1+ billion crowns annually to support specific health research projects.

The evaluation process of the individual project proposals is ensured by more than 120 panelists, experts from various fields of biomedicine, who are members of 10 expert panels - Metabolic and Endocrine Diseases, Circulatory Diseases, Cancer Diseases, Neurosciences and Mental Health, Immune Disorders and Infectious Diseases, Organ Function Disorders and Intensive Care Medicine, Age-Specific Disease Groups, Biomedical Technologies, Public Health and Nursing, Musculoskeletal Medicine.