Innovation Project for the Public Sector

Public sector bodies (cf. Definition Public Body)  are eligible to apply. Special restrictions may apply for certain thematic areas under this call. These requirements will be set out under the description of the respective thematic areas below. Applicants under some of the thematic areas must also satisfy additional special requirements. Such requirements will be stipulated in the description of the relevant thematic area.

Companies and research organisations may not serve as Project Owner.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner

The Project Owner must be a public sector body as defined in link above. The organisation listed as the Project Owner in the application form must have authorised the submission of the grant application.

Requirements relating to the project manager

The project manager’s scientific expertise and capability to manage the project will be assessed by a referee panel. There are no requirements relating to the formal qualifications of the project manager.

Requirements relating to partners

One or more approved research organisations must participate as a partner in the project. A list of approved research organisations is available here. Any additional requirements related to collaboration will be stipulated in the information relating to the individual thematic areas.

Expectations concerning other forms of collaboration

The Research Council also encourages collaboration between public entities, as well as between such entities and companies, special interest organisations and other actors that are relevant for the project.

The project is to be implemented through effective collaboration between the Project Owner and the project partners as defined in the state aid rules. Among other things, this entails that the results of the project are to be shared. 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.”

User participation

In many contexts, user involvement and knowledge about users will be essential if innovation efforts are to succeed. The term “user” in this context refers to those who are to be the recipients of the service, professional users/user organisations and/or those who are to be the service providers (employees). Projects where this is relevant should incorporate user participation and have a clear user-oriented perspective.

For projects from the municipal sector, the maximum amount of project support from the Research Council is 75 per cent of the total approved project costs. For projects from state institutions, the maximum amount of project support is 50 per cent of the overall project costs.

The Research Council’s support for innovation in the public sector applies only to R&D activities. Other activities and measures that are necessary to realising the innovation must be presented in the project description as well, although these costs will not be funded by the Research Council.

Relevant project expenses include payroll expenses, any grants/fellowships and direct project expenses. See What to enter in the project budget for Research Council guidelines on budgeting of project costs.

For more about the budget, see here.

In the grant application form, the Research Council requires you to break down the project budget into the following cost categories:

• Payroll and indirect expenses: costs incurred by the Project Owner and other task-performing partners in the public sector, trade and industry and research organisations in Norway.
• Other operating expenses: costs related to other activities that are necessary in order to perform R&D activities under the project. All costs entered as “other operating expenses” must be specified in the grant application and such costs will be revised if the project is granted funding.
• Procurement of R&D services: costs of contracting R&D suppliers to perform R&D activities for the project.
• Equipment: costs related to the operation and depreciation of scientific equipment necessary for the execution of the project.

Conditions for funding

Support from the Research Council to a research organisation is to be reserved for the organisation’s non-economic activity, and as such therefore does not constitute state aid. The Research Council requires a clear separation of accounts for the organisation’s economic and non-economic activities.

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). It is a requirement that the project is carried out in effective cooperation between the partners.

If the project is awarded funding, the Project Owner must enter into collaboration agreements with all project partners.

The Research Council’s allocation for the first year and any pledges for subsequent years will 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 (institution/company) 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) if funding is awarded and 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.

General requirements:

• The grant application, including all attachments, may be submitted in Norwegian or English.
• All attachments must be in PDF format and uploaded as an attachment to the grant application form.
• If the applicant has submitted the same or similar grant proposals under another Research Council programme or scheme, this must be stated in the grant application.
• The latest permitted project start date for projects is 1 December 2020. Projects approved for funding that have not started by this date may lose their allocation.

Mandatory attachments

• A project description of maximum 10 pages using the designated template for Innovation Projects for the Public Sector found at the bottom of this page. All items must be completed.
• CVs for the project manager and key project participants using the designated templates found at the bottom of this page. The CV for the project manager is to be uploaded as attachment type “CV” in the grant application form, and other CVs are to be uploaded as attachment type “Other”.
• Information about the applicant and partners must be provided in accordance with the template found at the bottom of this page. This is to be uploaded as attachment type “Other”.

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

Optional attachments

• A proposal for up to three referees who are presumed to be impartial and qualified to review the grant proposal.

Links to websites and documents, as well as other attachments than those specified above, will not be included in the application review process.

Applications will be assessed on the basis of the following criteria:

Once the grant applications have been received, the Research Council will review them to ensure that they satisfy all the formal requirements relating to the call and attachments. Grant applications that do not comply with the requirements will be rejected.

Grant applications that satisfy the formal requirements will be distributed to external referees for assessment of the criteria, Excellence, Impact and Implementation. The referees will convene in a panel meeting to reach a unified assessment of the grant application for each of these three criteria.

The criterion “Relevance to the call for proposals” will be assessed by the Research Council administration.

The panel’s assessment plays a crucial role in determining whether a project merits funding. After the panel review, the most highly ranked applications will be assessed by the Research Council administration in relation to thematic and budgetary priorities and other specifications described in the text of the call.

The final decision on funding will be taken by one of the Research Council’s portfolio boards. The decision is based on the referee assessments viewed together with the portfolio board’s own assessment of the relevance and strategic importance of the grant proposal.

The Research Council’s final decision on funding awards will be taken by the portfolio board based on an overall assessment of the project portfolio.

The final funding decision will be announced before the end of March 2020.