Centre for Environment-friendly Energy Research (FME) in Hydrogen

The call is open to approved Norwegian research organisations in binding cooperation with partners from other research organisations, trade and industry and the public sector.

See the list of approved Norwegian research organisations.

Private enterprises and, if relevant, public sector actors must participate as user partners.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner

• The Project Owner must be a research organisation.
• The research organisation defined as the Project Owner in the application form, must have approved submission of the application.
• The Project Owner submits the application on behalf of all the partners.

Requirements relating to project managers

• The project manager must document experience from managing large-scale, complex projects.
• They must also state their availability and the amount of time they expect to spend on the role as project manager.
• The project manager’s scientific expertise and suitability to manage the project will be assessed by the referee panel.

Requirements relating to employment

The project manager must be employed by the Project Owner or one of the partners.

Requirements relating to partners

• The centre will be operated by research organisations in binding cooperation with relevant Norwegian industry partners and potentially also partners from other sectors. For more information about cooperation and roles, see the document Requirements and guidelines – Societal and Industry-oriented Research Centre. You will find a link in the section About the call for proposals.
• The grant application must describe how the project incorporates the strategic objectives of all the partners.
• All partners must actively contribute to planning, following up and disseminating the results generated by the centre and ensure that new knowledge is taken into use.
• The centre must have three or more partners that are not research organisations and that provide funding to the project (user partners). Funding from the Research Council may be a maximum of twice the funding from user partners. Both cash contributions and the user partners’ work effort (in-kind contributions) can be included.
• The Project Owner and other research organisations should also contribute funding to highlight their engagement and strategic foundation.
• The user partners must have the majority on the board of directors and the chair of the board should be a representative of one of the user partners.
• The centre may have foreign partners. It must be documented how these will contribute to reaching the centre’s goals.

Scope of funding

• You can apply for a maximum of NOK 240 million over an eight-year period, divided between NOK 150 million the first five years and maximum NOK 90 million the last three years. The funding for the last three years will be decided on the basis of the outcome of a mid-term evaluation of the centre.
• In addition to funding from user partners, the host institution and other research organisations’ funding contribution should be such that the Research Council’s overall contribution does not exceed around half of the centre’s budget.
• Funding from the Research Council may not exceed twice the amount of funding from user partners.
• You can apply for funding to cover the actual costs necessary to carry out the project. Read more about what to enter in the project budget here.
• Stays abroad for doctoral and postdoctoral fellows must be covered within the framework of the project. FMEs will not be covered by the Research Council’s call for funding for Research Stays Abroad for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellows. The same applies to support for research stays for guest researchers in Norway.

Conditions for funding

• The Research Council will not award funding that constitutes state aid under this application type. The project is to be implemented by means of effective collaboration, as defined in the state aid rules:
  ‘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.’
• 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.
• Enterprises may not receive funding to cover project costs.
• Ownership of project results must be regulated to ensure that enterprises participating in the centre do not receive indirect funding from participating research partners. The regulation of ownership must therefore be in accordance with the EFTA Surveillance Authority’s guidelines on state aid for research, development and innovation, Section 28. This means that ownership of IPR from the project must be allocated to the different project partners in a way that satisfactorily reflects their work packages, contributions and respective interests.

The Research Council requires full and immediate open access to scientific publications; 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. This must be specified in the data management plan for the project.

Applications must be created and submitted via My RCN Web. 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 grant 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 application and all attachments must be submitted in English.
• All mandatory attachments must be included.
• All attachments must be uploaded in PDF format.
• Requirements relating to the Project Owner (research organisation) must be satisfied.
• Requirements relating to the partners must be satisfied.
• A maximum of 10 CVs can be attached.

Mandatory attachments

• A project description of up to 20 pages in length. The project description must use the designated template which is available for download at the end of the call.
• CV of the project manager (centre director) of maximum four pages using the designated template found at the end of the call.
• CVs (maximum four pages) for key project participants/work package leaders using the designated template found at the end of the call:
• Researchers submitting a CV must use the template ‘CV-mal for forskere/CV Template Researchers’.
• Persons submitting a CV who do not work at a research organisation can use the ‘CV Template’.
• Letters of intent from the Project Owner and all registered partners (maximum three pages in English). The letters must include the following:
• The partner must confirm their intention to participate actively as a partner in the centre and describe how this will be done in practice.
• The partner must give reasons for their interest in participating in the centre. How will the centre’s activities benefit the partner and create opportunities that would not otherwise arise without the centre?
• What potential for innovation and sustainable value creation does the partner envisage from the centre’s expected results, and how can the research results be applied?
• The partner must summarise their contribution to the centre in the form of knowledge, expertise and, if relevant, funding, facilities and own efforts during the centre's lifetime.
• The partner must describe their own long-term R&D plans and how this reflects the centre’s strategic plans (strategic foundation).
• The letter of intent from the Project Owner must also contain a confirmation from the management of the Project Owner’s organisation stating that it will accept the obligations that follow from a contract with the Research Council. The letter must also describe what part the centre will play in the Project Owner’s scientific strategy.
• Attachment (maximum three pages in English) describing delimitations and cooperation with other R&D projects and centres working in hydrogen and hydrogen-based energy carriers (see the section Delimitation).

Applications that do not meet the requirements listed above will be rejected.

Optional attachments

• Proposals for up to five referees who are considered qualified to assess the application

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

The Research Council uses the three main criteria Excellence, Impact and Implementation. We will also assess the applications’ relevance in relation to the requirements and guidelines set out in the call for proposals. This also includes the centre’s national contribution and profile, the basis for the Project Owner’s scientific strategies and how the centre builds on or complements other established centres and initiatives.

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

Where applicants are otherwise equally qualified, the Research Council will prioritise applications with female centre directors and centres with good female representation in leading positions.

Once the applications have been received, we will conduct a preliminary administrative review to ensure that they satisfy all the stipulated formal requirements. Applications that do not meet the formal requirements will be rejected.

Approved applications will be assessed by referee panels comprising impartial scientific experts in the relevant thematic areas and by experts well acquainted with the market aspects of hydrogen and hydrogen-based energy carriers. For each individual application, the Research Council will check that all referees on the panel are impartial and have sufficient expertise to assess the research topic in question. Assessments can also be obtained from external referees in order to assist the panel in reaching a consensus-based assessment. The referee panel will assess the criteria Excellence, Impact and Implementation. An overall mark is awarded for each of these criteria.

After the panel has completed its assessment, the Research Council will conduct an assessment of the relevance criterion. 

The overall mark awarded to the application is based on the relevance criterion and the panel’s assessment. The overall mark is calculated on the basis of the average of the four criteria without weighting. 

The portfolio board for energy, transport and low emissions will make the final decision on allocation.

Before signing the contract, we will in cooperation with the Project Owner ensure that the project meets the overall framework of the call as regards the composition of partners, resource allocation, plans etc.

See also: How we process applications.

We expect to publish which applications have been awarded funding on 1 March 2022. For updated dates and a list of the applications granted funding, see application results here.