Centre for Nuclear Research

Only approved Norwegian research organisations may apply. See the list of approved Norwegian research organisations.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner

The research organisation listed as the Project Owner in the application form must have authorised the submission of the grant application to the Research Council. The Project Owner is also the host institution.

Requirements relating to project managers

The project manager named in the application must be the centre director.

• You must have an approved doctorate or achieved professor/associate professor qualifications before the date of the application submission deadline. For the purposes of this call, you are also qualified if you hold or have held a position as forsker 1 (research professor), forsker 2 (senior researcher) or seniorforsker (senior researcher) in the institute sector.
• You must have documented qualifications and/or experience of managing large-scale projects.
• You can only be the project manager of one application submitted under this call for proposals.
• The project manager must be employed by the host institution.

Other requirements

The centre/centres will be established for an initial period of five years, with an option to extend for a further three-year period following an evaluation. The evaluation will assess the centre’s goal attainment seen in light of

• the purpose and assessment criteria set out in the call
• the goals and milestone plan as described in the centre’s revised application
• the document Research Centre – Research Institution-based Strategic Project, Requirements and Guidelines

Requirements relating to partners

The document Research Centre – Research Institution-based Strategic Project, Requirements and Guidelines describes the centre’s organisation and responsibilities.

Approved Norwegian research organisations and equivalent foreign organisations are eligible to participate as partners in the project and receive funding.

Relevant public sector actors can also be included as the centre’s partners, but please note that only approved research organisations can receive funding from 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 centre’s activities. You will find general information on our website about what to enter in the budget, and more details about the application type in Research Centre – Research Institution-based Strategic Project, Requirements and Guidelines.

You may be granted funding for the following costs:

• Payroll and indirect expenses related to researcher time (including research fellowship positions) at the research organisations participating in the centre. For doctoral research fellowships, this funding is limited to maximum three person-years. For post-doctoral research fellowships, this funding is limited to maximum four person-years. To ensure that the centre will have a lasting effect in relation to Norwegian research capacity and competence, the research organisations’ plans may include new permanent researcher positions. Such researcher positions, which must contribute directly to the centre’s activities, can be funded through the centre’s grant for a period of up to three years. We will not fund payroll and indirect expenses for other employees in permanent positions at universities or university colleges. The centres are intended to strengthen capacity and competence in this area in the long term. Therefore, it is very important that the researchers in the centre continues teaching students. Exceptions can be made for the centre director. Professor II positions may be granted funding.
• Equipment that is necessary to carry out the project. This includes lease and depreciation costs for scientific equipment, access to national or international research infrastructure and minor new procurements and upgrading of existing equipment.
• Other operating expenses which comprise costs for other activities that are necessary to carry out the centre’s R&D efforts. Procurements from subcontractors that exceed NOK 100,000 must be specified.

Do not use the cost category ‘Procurement of R&D services’ in the application form.

Scope of funding

The available budget of NOK 200 million will be used to establish one or two centres. You can apply for a maximum of NOK 200 million over an eight-year period, divided between maximum NOK 125 million the first five years and maximum NOK 75 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.

You can apply to the Research Council for up to NOK 25 million per year.

The host institution and partners are expected to contribute funding to highlight their interest and the centre’s strategic foundation, but there is no own-funding requirement.

Stays abroad for doctoral and post-doctoral fellows must be covered within the framework of the centre. The research centre will therefore not be covered by our call for funding for research stays abroad for doctoral and postdoctoral fellows.

Conditions for funding

The project start must be between 1 April and 1 September 2023.

We will not award funding that constitutes state aid under this call. Undertakings may not receive funding to cover project costs. The funding allocated to research organisations must go to their non-economic activity and does therefore not constitute state aid. The Research Council requires a clear separation of accounts for the organisation’s economic and non-economic activities.

The Research Council’s requirements relating to allocations and disbursement of funding 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, available in their entirety on the information page: What the contract involves.

If your project is granted funding, the following must be in place before you sign a contract with us:

• The Project Owner is obliged to enter into a joint collaboration agreement with all partners and define a mandate for the board.
• A board must be appointed before start-up of the centre. The centre’s board of directors must comprise representatives of the Project Owner and research partners.
• From 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. The requirement does not apply to the business sector, special interest organisations or the non-governmental sector.
• The Research Council requires full and immediate open access to scientific publications; see Plan S – open access to publications.
• You must prepare a data processing plan for any research data that will be processed in the project. Research data must be made available in accordance with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable).

You may revise and resubmit your application form multiple times up to the submission deadline for applications. 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.
• The standard templates are available for download at the end of the call.
• All attachments must be uploaded in PDF format.
• All mandatory attachments must be included.
• Requirements relating to the Project Owner (research organisation) must be satisfied.
• Requirements relating to the partners must be satisfied.
• A maximum of six CVs can be attached.

Mandatory attachments

• A project description, maximum 20 pages, using the designated template.
• the CV of the project manager (centre director) using the designated template.
• the CVs of up to five key project participants (e.g. work package leaders) using the designated template.

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

Optional attachments

• Proposals for up to five referees who are considered qualified to assess the application. The referees’ names, titles, email addresses and institutional affiliation must be stated. We are not obliged to use the proposed referees.

All attachments must be submitted together with the application. We will not accept attachments submitted after the deadline for applications unless we have requested further information.

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.

We assess the applications in light of the purpose of the application type and pursuant to the following criteria:

When the panel assesses the application, it will especially consider the call’s thematic delimitation, the centre’s envisaged long-term effects on Norway's research capacity and competence, and the extent of national collaboration and coordination between relevant expert communities.

Applications will be assessed by an international referee panel.

The panel will assess each application based on the four assessment criteria and the requirements and objectives described in the call.

The panel’s preliminary assessment and marks will be sent to the applicants. They will have the opportunity to clarify any misunderstandings of a scientific nature in the panel’s assessment. This will tentatively happen during the first half of February 2023. These comments will then be conveyed to the panel members, who may choose to take the comments into account in the final assessment.

The panel will also assess how the applications as a whole fulfil the requirement for national collaboration and coordination between relevant expert communities. The panel may recommend adjustments to the budgets of the applications. These are recommendations that the portfolio board for Natural Sciences and Technology may take into account if there are two centres that are being considered for funding.

The portfolio board for Natural Sciences and Technology will make the funding decision. They will have access to the grant applications including attachments, the call text, the panel's assessments and recommendations and the applicants' comments.

If there are too few applications and/or the quality of the applications is too low, the total amount of funding awarded may be lower than the amount of funding presumed available for this call for proposals (NOK 200 million).

We expect to announce the funding decision by the end of March 2023.

Read more about the processing of applications.

Should the financial or scientific framework set in the central government budget be changed, the amount of funding announced in this call may also be subject to changes.