Support for Networking to Promote Gender Balance in Norwegian Research

Category A (coordination and management of the BalanseHub network):
Approved Norwegian research organisations may apply for funding individually or in a collaborative effort.

Category B (participation in the BalanseHub network):
Approved Norwegian research organisations may apply for funding.

See here for the list of approved Norwegian research organisations.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner
The organisation listed as the Project Owner in the grant application must have approved the submission of the grant application to the Research Council.

Requirements relating to the project manager
Category A: 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.

Category B: There are no formal requirements for the project manager’s qualifications.

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

For Category A (coordination and management of the BalanseHub network), funding may be used to cover the following costs:

• operating expenses related to the coordination and management of the BalanseHub network;
• direct expenses such as rental of premises, food, remuneration to external speakers according to the research organisation’s established rates and travel expenses for external speakers providing professional presentations at the event;
• payroll expenses: See here for the rates for academic personnel in the university and university college sector in Norway;
• procurement of R&D services.

For Category B (participation in the BalanseHub network), funding may be used to cover the following costs:

• operating expenses, including travel expenses related to participation in working meetings;
• payroll and direct expenses related to implementation of measures in the specific organisation.

Calculating support
You may apply for support for up to 100 per cent of the budgeted project costs, limited to maximum NOK 7 million for Category A and NOK 1 million for Category B.

Funding will be awarded to one project to coordinate and manage the BalanseHub network and to 20–25 projects relating to participation and measures-based activities under the network.

Applicants must clearly specify whether funding is sought under Category A or B in the field for “Primary and secondary objectives of the project” in the grant application form.

Conditions for funding
To be eligible for funding, the project must start on 1 January 2021 and funding must be sought from the Research Council for 2021 and 2022. The latest permitted project completion date is 31 December 2022. 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.

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 projects must submit a final report in addition to the annual reports.

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 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, the expenses to be covered and any own funding must be in keeping with the framework of the call.
• The budget must be formulated correctly to clearly indicate what the funding will cover.
• The application form must be fully completed.
• The required attachments must be included using the designated templates.
• The project description must provide answers to the items set out in the text of the call.
• Grant applications and all attachments must be submitted in Norwegian.
• All attachments must be uploaded in PDF format.

Mandatory attachments

• A project description of maximum five pages using the designated template (found at the end of this call).
• A CV for the project manager, maximum four pages, including the list of publications. Use the designated template found at the end of this call.

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.

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

Priority will be given to projects that:

• involve research organisations with a major gender imbalance, assuming all other factors in the grant applications are essentially equal.
• will promote organisational and geographical distribution and ensure a well-balanced portfolio.

The Research Council will assess all grant applications administratively.