New Strategic Programmes for NOFIMA 2021-2024

This call for proposals is only open to grant applications from Nofima.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner
The research organisation is to be entered as the Project Owner in the application form, and must have authorised the submission of the grant application. 

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 this context, 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
Only research organisations are eligible to be partners and receive funding via the research project.

Other types of organisations, such as companies and other undertakings, are not eligible to receive support and may not be project partners, but they may serve as suppliers of R&D services to the project. In such cases, the intellectual property rights related to the result of the supplier’s work activities will become the property of the institution procuring the services. 

Requirement to incorporate user involvement
The project is required to incorporate user involvement. Grant proposals must explain who the relevant users are for the given project, and how they will be involved in the planning and implementation of the project and application of the results. 

It is important that the anticipated benefits of the project are based on user needs and documented knowledge gaps within the thematic areas described in the text of the call. Both short- and long-term impacts and outcomes are to be described in the grant application.

Please see the webpage on “What to enter in the project budget” for details and important information. 

• Operating expenses, including procurement of R&D services, costs related to the operation and depreciation of scientific equipment, and other operating costs.  
• Payroll expenses: For academic personnel in the university and university college sector and all doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships in Norway the following rates are to be used. You may apply for funding to cover the following positions: 

• Doctoral research fellowships for up to three years and post-doctoral research fellowships for up to three years. The amount sought must follow the Research Council’s rates for doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships.  

• Hiring procedures, employment periods, work duties, education plans, etc., must comply with the regulations concerning terms and conditions of employment for the posts of post-doctoral research fellow, research fellow, research assistant and resident laid down by the Ministry of Education and Research.  
• Academic positions.    

Conditions for funding  

Companies will not be eligible to receive support to cover projects costs. 

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. 

Reporting and disbursement of funding
Funding will be disbursed in arrears, and only actual expenses entered in the institution’s accounts will be covered. All reports are to be submitted online. 

Grant applications are to be based on a project outline submitted to the FFL by the 17 January 2020 deadline.  

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.  

• The grant application, including all attachments, must be submitted in English.  
• All attachments must be uploaded in PDF format. 

• Grant applications must fulfil the intentions and objectives of Nofima Mat.  
• Grant applications must include plans for how important users (in industry, society, research and public administration) will be incorporated into/take part in dissemination activities for the project.  
• The role and tasks of each project partner must be clearly described.  
• The project summary must address all key points in the grant application, as the project summary will be a central component of the decision-making process.   
• The project title, project summary and overall objectives must be submitted in Norwegian as a separate attachment of maximum one page.   

• To be eligible for funding the project must start on 1 January 2021 and funding for 2021 must be sought from the Research Council. The latest permitted project completion date is 31 December 2024.  

Mandatory attachments   

• A project description of maximum 15 pages using the designated template, found at the bottom of this page.    
• A CV of maximum 4 pages for the project manager using the designated template, found at the bottom of this page.   

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

Optional attachments  

• CVs for key project participants; 
• 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. 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. 

All grant applications will be assessed by international referee panels. Once the panel assessments are completed, the grant applications will be assessed in relation to their relevance to this call. Assessment of the relevance criterion will be carried out by the Research Council in cooperation with the FFL Secretariat. The Research Council administration will then submit its recommendation to the allocating body. The allocating body is responsible for the final decision regarding the approval or rejection of grant proposals.  

The final decision regarding funding is expected to be announced end of October/beginning of November 2020.