Collaborative and Knowledge-building Pre-project within Welfare, Working Life and Migration

Approved Norwegian research organisations may apply in cooperation with actors from the public and private sectors, non-governmental organisations, special interest organisations and other research organisations.

See the definition of a public sector body here.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner

The organisation listed as the Project Owner in the grant application must be an approved Norwegian research organisation and must have approved the submission of the grant application to the Research Council.

Requirements relating to the project manager

To qualify as project manager, individuals must hold an approved doctorate or have obtained qualifications at associate professorship level before the date of the application submission deadline. In the context of this call, current or previous employment in the Norwegian research institute sector in a position as forsker 1 (research professor), forsker 2 (senior researcher) or seniorforsker (senior researcher) is considered equivalent qualification.

Requirements relating to partners

A Collaborative and Knowledge-building Project, including any Pre-projects, requires the active participation of one or more relevant partners. Eligible partners include trade and industry, public sector entities, the social partners, non-governmental organisations and/or other national and international actors of relevance to the project. The applicant must intend for the activities under the project to lead to further cooperation.

The project is to be implemented in accordance with the definition of “effective collaboration” in the state aid rules, which entails among other things that the results of the project are to accrue to the Project Owner and other project partners. Effective collaboration is defined as follows:

“collaboration between at least two independent parties to exchange knowledge or technology, or to achieve a common objective based on the division of labour where the parties jointly define the scope of the collaborative project, contribute to its implementation and share its risks, as well as its results. One or several parties may bear the full costs of the project and thus relieve other parties of its financial risks. Contract research and provision of research services are not considered forms of collaboration.”

Under this call, the Research Council may cover costs that are necessary for the execution of the project. These costs must be associated with activities that comply with the definition of “feasibility studies” in the state aid rules (see definition here), including seminars/workshops and other measures to build networks and establish cooperation as the basis for a Collaborative and Knowledge-building Project. 

In order for the Research Council to calculate the amount of support, the grant application must include an overall project budget based on the following types of approved project costs:

• Payroll and indirect expenses incurred by the organisations participating in the project. Note that Pre-projects may not include research fellowships. See here for guidelines for calculating payroll and indirect costs in grant applications to the Research Council.
• Costs relating to procurement and use of scientific equipment. See here for Research Council guidelines for calculating costs of equipment.
• Other operating expenses, including support for travel expenses and other project-related costs for seminars/workshops and other measures to build networks and establish cooperation.

Conditions for funding

• Support awarded by the Research Council is to go to the non-economic activity of research organisations participating in the project.
• According to the state aid rules, support to an undertaking constitutes state aid. An “undertaking” in this context is defined as any actor that carries out an economic activity consisting of offering products or services on a given market. When an undertaking receives support to cover a portion of its project costs as a partner in the project, this support must be awarded in accordance with Article 25 of the General Block Exemption Regulation for state aid (Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014).
• Support for organisations that are not research organisations or are not acting as an “undertaking” in the context of this call must go to their non-economic activity.
• The Research Council’s allocation for the first year and any pledges for subsequent years will otherwise be disbursed in accordance with the conditions set out in this agreement and the General Terms and Conditions for R&D Projects.

The Project Owner (research organisation) is responsible for selecting the archiving solution(s) to use for storing research data generated during the project. The Project Owner must specify the planned solution(s) in connection with the revised grant proposal.

You may revise and resubmit your grant application form multiple times up to the application submission deadline. We recommend that you submit your application as soon as you have filled in the application form and included all mandatory attachments. After the deadline, it is the most recently submitted version of the grant application that will be processed.

• Grant applications and all attachments, may be submitted in Norwegian or English.
• All attachments must be uploaded in PDF format.

The designated templates for the attachments are available for download at the bottom of this page.

Mandatory attachments

• A project description of maximum three pages using the designated template, found at the bottom of this page.
• CVs for the project manager and key project participants using the designated templates found at the bottom of this page.
• Confirmation of participation from partners.

Grant applications that do not satisfy the above requirements will be rejected.

Links to websites and documents, as well as other attachments than those specified above, will not be included in the application review process. There is no technical validation of the content of the attachments you upload, so please make sure that you upload the correct file for the selected type of attachment.

The assesment criteria for this call for proposals:

Priority will be given to projects that:

• help to achieve the broadest thematic range possible within the framework of the VAM work programme.
• are led by women project managers, assuming all factors relating to scientific merit and relevance are essentially equal.

Applications for funding for Pre-projects as the basis for a Collaborative and Knowledge-building Project will be processed administratively by the Research Council.

The final decision regarding funding is expected to be announced in December 2019.