Collaborative Project on Digital Security and Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Autonomous Systems

The call is open to approved Norwegian research organisations in binding cooperation with relevant actors from public sector entities, trade and other industry, other public organisations and/or private organisations.

The projects must involve collaboration between the research group and public and/or private sector actors.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner and partners

The project must involve two or more Norwegian partners that are not research organisations. Partners that are not research organisations must together participate with a minimum of 10 per cent of the total project costs. This may be in the form of work hours or equipment, but not cash contributions.

The Project Owner and project partners are to implement the project through effective collaboration. This means among other things that the results from the project must be shared. The definition of effective collaboration is 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.

Actors may not be assigned more than one role in the project. This means that the Project Owner or partner in the project may not at the same time be providers of R&D services (sub-contractors) in the same project.

The research organisation listed as the Project Owner in the grant application must have approved the submission of the grant application to the Research Council. The grant application must describe how the project incorporates the strategic objectives of the Project Owner and all partners.

You can apply for funding to cover the actual costs necessary to carry out the project. You will find detailed and important information about what to enter in the project budget on the Research Council’s website.

Rules apply to what percentage of the contribution partner businesses can receive in funding through the project. The Research Council can cover around 50 per cent of contributions from businesses and 100 per cent of contributions from public sector entities. Read more about the conditions for awarding state aid.

Foreign businesses may participate as partners, but will not receive Research Council funding. You will find more information about international partners in our Guide for Applicants for Collaborative and Knowledge-building Projects.

The project may buy services from Norwegian and foreign businesses on normal terms. Such businesses will constitute subcontractors to the project rather than partners.

If the project includes doctoral and post-doctoral research fellowships and there are concrete plans in place for research stays abroad for the fellowship-holders, funding for these stays may be included in the grant application. The Research Council has also issued a separate call for funding for Research Stays Abroad for Doctoral and Post-doctoral Fellows. The project manager may seek funding under that call if plans for research stays abroad for research fellows affiliated with the project emerge later in the project period.

Conditions for funding

Project start-up must take place within six months of the approved funding allocation.

Any funding awarded to enterprises constitutes state aid. Enterprises in this context means all actors that engage in economic activities by providing goods and/or services in a market. Enterprises serving as partners may have parts of their project costs covered in accordance with the General Block Exemption Regulation Article 25 (Commission Regulation (EU) No. 651/2014).

The state aid rules set clear limits for the percentage of funding that these enterprises are allowed to receive, depending on the enterprise’s size and the type of activities it undertakes. Project applications that are granted funding must submit further information about the project and partners to ensure that the project is undertaken in accordance with the rules.

If the project is awarded funding, the Project Owner is to draw up collaboration agreements with all of the Norwegian and international partners in the project. The collaboration agreements are to regulate the reciprocal rights and obligations of the Project Owner and partners in the project and ensure the integrity and independence of the research. It is to ensure that no participating undertaking receives indirect state aid from a research organisation serving as Project Owner or partner. The agreement must therefore include conditions for the collaboration which ensure compliance with paragraph 28 of the EFTA Surveillance Authority’s guidelines for state aid for research and development and innovation.

The Research Council’s requirements relating to allocation and disbursement of support for the first year and any pledges and payments for subsequent years are set out in the General Terms and Conditions for R&D Projects.

Projects awarded funding under this call are required to submit an annual project account report documenting incurred project costs and their financing.

From 1 January 2022, all grant recipients that are research organisations or public sector bodies (Project Owners and partners) must have a Gender Equality Plan (GEP) available on their website. This must be in place when they sign the grant agreement for projects awarded funding from the Research Council. The requirement does not apply to the business sector, special interest organisations or the non-profit sector.

The Research Council requires full and immediate open access to scientific articles; see Plan S – open access to publications.

Research data must be made available in accordance with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable). The Project Owner organisation of projects that process data must prepare a data management plan in connection with the revised application.

The Project Owner organisation is responsible for selecting which archiving solution(s) to use for storing research data generated during the project.

The application and all attachments must be submitted in English and all attachments must be uploaded in PDF format.

Mandatory attachments

• A project description of maximum 11 pages using the designated template found at the end of this call.
• CVs (maximum four pages each) for the project manager and key project participants/work package leaders using the designated templates found at the end of this call.
• Letters of Intent (LOI) from all registered partners. The letters must explain why the research project is important for them, and describe the planned contributions to the project.

Applications that do not satisfy the above requirements will be rejected.

We will not assess documents and websites linked to in the application, or other attachments than those specified above.

Grant applications will be assessed on the basis of the following criteria:

If a project contributes to increasing the proportion of women in the subject areas natural science and technology, this will count as positive in the assessment of the Impact criterion.

All grant applications that fall within the thematic framework of the call will be assessed by external specialists. Applications that do not fall within the thematic framework of the call will not be assessed.

Applications that receive an overall mark of 6 or 7 will be included in the randomised selection, see more information at the top of the call for proposals.

Applications with a lower overall mark will not be eligible for funding.

Applicants whose project proposals are not awarded funding will not be permitted to reapply for funding for a period of six months from the date the proposal was submitted, but may reapply after that. During this period, no applicants may submit a grant application with the same project proposal to this call.

Grant application processing will start immediately after the proposal is received. Notification of the funding decision may be expected 8–12 weeks after the date of submission. Please note that this may take longer during holiday periods.