Supplementary Funding for Norwegian Participants in Horizon 2020 Projects

Norwegian actors participating in a Horizon 2020 project, or who have previously participated, are eligible to apply. 

You may only submit one application for supplementary funding per Horizon 2020 project. When there is more than one Norwegian actor participating in a Horizon 2020 project who is applying for supplementary funding, these must submit a joint application for funding.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner
The applicant/Project Owner must be a participant in an ongoing Horizon 2020 project, or have previously participated in a Horizon 2020 project that has been concluded. The organisation specified as the Project Owner for the project seeking funding must have a formal role (coordinator, work package manager or ordinary participant) in the project.

Requirements relating to the project manager
The project manager for the project seeking supplementary funding must have an active role in the Horizon 2020 project.

Requirements relating to partners
Partners in the project seeking supplementary funding should preferably have formal roles in the Horizon 2020 project. We may allow other partners that are not participating in the project if they provide added value to the project seeking supplementary funding. A description of the value added must be provided in the application.

You will find detailed and important information about what to enter in the project budget on our website.

The project applying for supplementary funding must include independent activities that build on the Horizon 2020 project. We can award funding for activities described in the Horizon 2020 project’s ‘Dissemination and Exploitation Plan’, on the condition that these project activities have not previously received funding. Other activities that may receive funding include:

• special initiatives for disseminating or exploiting the results of the Horizon 2020 project in Norway, e.g. organising workshops, producing information material etc.;
• establishment and operation of national networks in connection with the Horizon 2020 project;
• participation in specific conferences of relevance to the Horizon 2020 project;
• other relevant activities that increase the benefit to Norway from participating in the Horizon 2020 project.

You can apply for funding to cover up to 100 per cent of the budgeted project costs.

Supplementary funding cannot be used for R&D or innovation activities. Applications that include such activities will be rejected.

See information about calculating payroll and operating expenses here.

Conditions for funding
Funding awarded to a research organisation is only to go to the organisation’s non-economic activity. It does not therefore constitute state aid. The Research Council requires a clear separation of accounts for the organisation’s economic and non-economic activities.

Support will be awarded to undertakings as de minimis aid. This means that an undertaking may receive maximum EUR 200,000 in de minimis aid over a period of three years.

Before the disbursement of de minimis aid, the Research Council will request written confirmation and an overview of all other de minimis aid the undertaking has received during the three last fiscal years. For undertakings that are part of a group of companies, the maximum limit generally applies to the group as a whole. See also the EU Directive on de minimis aid (Commission Regulation (EU) No 1407/2013).

Automatic payment on the condition that the project follows the progress schedule.

The following formal requirements must be met: 

• The applicant/Project Owner must come from an eligible category of institution.
• The grant application must lie within the scope/satisfy the objectives of this call.
• The funding amount sought, expenses to be covered and any own financing to be provided must be in keeping with the framework of the call.
• The budget must be formulated correctly so that it clearly indicates what the funding will cover.
• The application form must be completed in full.
• The required attachments must be included using the dedicated templates.
• The project description must provide answers to the items set out in the text of the call.
• The application and all attachments must be written in Norwegian or English.
• All attachments must be uploaded in PDF format.

Grant applications that do not satisfy the above requirements will be rejected. Applications that include R&D or innovation activities will be rejected.

• All items in the project description template must be completed, and responses should be as concrete and clear as possible.
• The project description must provide answers to the items set out in the call.

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.

Mandatory attachments

• A project description of up to five pages. Use the designated template, which is available for download at the end of the call for proposals.
• The form for de minimis aid for undertakings is available for download at the end of this call.

The Horizon 2020 project’s ‘Dissemination and Exploitation Plan’ may also be submitted as an attachment. This can be uploaded under the category ‘Other’ in the application form.

Applications submitted for this call will be assessed on the basis of the three main criteria Excellence, Impact and Implementation. Since the main goal of the supplementary funding scheme is to increase the impact of Horizon 2020 projects in Norway, the mark awarded for Impact will be weighted using a factor of 1.5.

Projects that receive the same marks in accordance with the three main criteria above after this weighting will then be ranked as follows:

1. participation in the Horizon 2020 project: coordinators are prioritised above work package managers, who are prioritised above ordinary participants
   b. the total size of the Horizon 2020 project (in Euro)

All applications will be assessed by the Research Council's administration.

The administration is responsible for the final decision regarding the approval or rejection of grant applications.

A funding decision can be expected in mid-January 2021.