The competition calls for Millennium Institutes and Nuclei projects have two purposes: the creation of new research centers of excellence and the competitive renewal of those that complete their first execution period.

The main criteria to evaluate the projects are:

• Academic and scientific excellence of the project and its researchers.
• Objectives and approach of the research plan.
• Technical and methodological quality of the project.
• Transdisciplinarity and associative work between the researchers and external collaborations of the project.
• Training capacity of young scientists. 
• Institutional projection.
• Total cost and complementary public or private sources of financing.
• General conditions for the project’s purposes to be achieved.