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Research Centre for Building Knowledge and Competence on the Significance of EEA Law for Norwegian Law

Published 28 Jun 2022

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Published 28 Jun 2022
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Application typeResearch Centre
Application deadline21 September 2022, 13:00 CEST
Relevant thematic areas for this callDemocracy, administration and renewal
Target groupsResearch organisations
Funding scalemaximum NOK 21 000 000
Amount of funding presumed available for this call for proposalsup to NOK 42 000 000
Project duration48-60 months

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Mandatory attachment

Important dates

10 Aug 2022

Date call is made active

21 Sep 2022

Application submission deadline

DECEMBER 2022

The outcome of the application processing is expected to be published

01 Jan 2023

Earliest permitted project start

01 Jun 2023

Latest permitted project start

31 Dec 2028

Latest permitted project completion

Important dates

Purpose

The purpose of the call is to establish two research centres for integration of EEA law into Norwegian law. The centres will be part of a long-term investment whose overriding goal is to strengthen legal research in Norway.

This call is a follow up of the allocation letters for 2022 from the Ministry of Justice and Public Security’s and the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion’s.

About the call for proposals

Why are we advertising this funding?

Legal research in Norway has not sufficiently accounted for the impact of EEA law on conditions in Norway and how EEA law is incorporated into Norwegian law. Inadequate integration of EEA law applies to many areas of administrative law, as described in e.g. Norwegian Official Report (NOU) 2020:9: Blindsonen.

The Research Centres for the Integration of EEA Law into Norwegian Law shall contribute to strengthen legal research on EEA law, increase the research capacity of the research community, strengthen study programmes in law and provide a knowledge base for public administration work. The centres shall strengthen knowledge and implementation of EEA law in Norwegian law.

We need to generate knowledge about

  • EEA law to prevent misinterpretations and learn more about the importance of the EEA Agreement in areas where this is not sufficiently reflected in research or practice
  • the limits EEA law sets for Norwegian law and public administration
  • the content of EEA law within and across different areas of law

Relevant projects

We will prioritise projects that include research on social security law. However, this does not preclude funding of applications that do not include research on social security law.

The centres are required to

  • include national and international cooperation
  • have a clear link to legal education (master’s degree in law)
  • include recruitment positions (PhD candidates)
  • have a plan for mobilisation to obtain funding from other funding schemes(national and international)
  • have a plan for national and international publication
  • focus on both general and user-oriented dissemination, for example annual seminars, courses etc. targeting the public administration, the prosecuting authority, courts of law and/or other relevant actors

The two centres that are awarded funding may have several geographical locations. The centres must be established in connection with already existing research groups. The academic and administrative responsibility must be clearly anchored in the host institution .

The centres are established for a period of five years.

You will find more detailed information about the project type Research Centre – Research Institution-based Strategic Project in the Requirements and Guidelines for a Research Institution-based Strategic Project. This information can be useful when writing the application.

 The Norwegian-language call for proposals is the legally binding version.

Who is eligible to apply?

Approved Norwegian research organisations that offer a master’s degree in law are eligible to apply.

In this call, the Project Owner is also referred to as the ‘host institution’.

See the list of approved Norwegian research organisations.

Who can participate in the project?

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 submits the application on behalf of all the partners.

Requirements relating to project managers

  • In the application, the project manager is the same person as the centre director.
  • The project manager 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.

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

Requirements relating to partners

  • The centre must cooperate with other research groups in Norway and abroad.
  • Approved Norwegian research organisations and equivalent foreign organisations and public sector bodies are eligible to participate as partners in the project and receive funding. Please note that only the Project Owner is required to offer a master’s degree in law; this requirement does not apply to the partners.
  • The grant application must be in line with the strategic objectives of all the partners.
  • All partners must actively contribute to planning, following up and disseminating the results generated by the centre’s research activities and ensure that the new knowledge is taken into use.
  • The centre must contribute to further developing the research field and increase the quality of legal research in Norway. There will therefore be limited funding available to international research organisations. If you are planning to allocate funding to research organisations abroad, the project description must explain how this will help to further develop the research field in Norway.

What can you seek funding for?

  • The Research Council can provide NOK 21 million in funding per project under this call, distributed over a five-year period. Own funding of 20 per cent is required.
  • You can apply for funding to cover the actual costs necessary to carry out the project. Costs for procurement of R&D will not be covered. You will find detailed and important information about what to enter in the project budget on this website.
  • Stays abroad for doctoral and post-doctoral fellows must be covered within the framework of the funding provided for the centre. The centre is thereby not included in the Research Council's special scheme for funding for research stays abroad for doctoral and post-doctoral fellows.

The Research Council will not award funding that constitutes state aid under this call.

Conditions for funding

The project must start between 1 January 2023 and 1 June 2023, and you must apply for funding from the Research Council for 2023. The latest permitted completion date for the project is 31 December 2028.

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 when you revise the application:

  • 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. This must be in place when they sign the grant agreement for the project we have awarded funding. 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 in connection with the revised application. Research data must be made available in accordance with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable).
  • 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.

Reporting and disbursement of funding

The centres must submit annual progress reports and a final report at the end of the project period. All reporting takes place electronically.

We will disburse the funding automatically.

Relevant thematic areas for this call

The call encompasses legal research, and grant applications will be accepted for both basic and applied research projects.

Democracy, administration and renewal

Legislative work

Practical information

Requirements for this application type

You may revise and resubmit your 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 attachments must be uploaded in PDF format.
  • The templates for attachments can be found at the end of the call.

Mandatory attachments

  • A project description, maximum 20 pages
  • A CV for the centre director, maximum four pages.
  • The CVs of key participants in the project, maximum four pages each

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

Optional attachment

  • proposals for up to three referees who are considered qualified to assess the application.

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.

Assessment criteria

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

Excellence

The extent to which the centre is ambitious, innovative and advances the research front
• Assess scientific creativity and originality.
• The extent to which hypotheses and research questions are innovative and courageous.
• The extent to which the centre has the potential to generate new knowledge that advances the research front, including significant development/renewal of theories, methods, experiments or empirical knowledge.

The quality of the centre's R&D activities
• Assess the quality of research questions, hypotheses and project objectives, and the extent to which they are clearly described.
• The extent to which the theoretical approach, research design and choice of methods are credible and appropriate, and interdisciplinary perspectives are sufficiently considered.
• The extent to which research conducted at the centre takes sufficient consideration of social responsibility, ethical issues and gender dimensions.
• The extent to which the centre satisfactorily addresses users/stakeholders’ knowledge.

Impact

Potential impacts of the proposed research
• The extent to which the centre’s planned results can contribute to addressing important scientific challenges, both now and going forward.
• The extent to which the centre’s planned results can address important challenges in the sector(s), both now and going forward.
• The extent to which competence building and the centre's planned results will form the basis for value creation in the Norwegian business and/or public sector.
• The extent to which the centre describes impacts that constitute added value from organising a major research initiative as a research centre.
• The extent to which the centre’s planned results are relevant to the UN Sustainable Development Goals or have the potential to address other important societal challenges, both now and going forward.
• The extent to which the potential impacts are clearly formulated and credible.

Communication and utilisation
• Assess the quality and scope of communication and involvement activities targeting relevant stakeholders/users.
• The extent to which partners are involved in the work of utilising the centre's results.

Implementation

Quality of the project manager (centre director) and project group
• The extent to which the project manager (centre director) has relevant expertise and experience and is qualified to lead an initiative of this scale.
• The extent to which the project participants complement one another, and the project group has the necessary expertise to effectively implement the centre initiative.

The quality of the centre’s organisation and management
• The extent to which the centre will be efficiently organised, including whether the resources allocated to the different work packages are sufficient and in accordance with the centre’s objectives and deliveries.
• The extent to which the centre's tasks are distributed in a way that ensures all project participants have a clear role and sufficient resources to fulfil that role.
• The extent to which the management and governance of the centre are expediently organised, including risk and innovation management.
• The extent to which the partners contribute to the management and implementation of the centre.

The quality and extent of international cooperation
• The extent to which the scope and quality of international collaborative activities are in keeping with the centre's objectives.

Gender balance in the centre’s project group
• If the gender balance in the centre's management team (centre manager and research managers) is poor, the extent to which the centre have an expedient plan in place to support the development of researcher talents of the under-represented gender to qualify for senior-level positions?

Relevance to the call for proposals

The extent to which the project satisfies the guidelines and stipulations set out in the call for proposals.

We will prioritise projects with female project managers when the applications are otherwise considered to be on a par.

Administrative procedures

All applications for a research centre will be assessed by international referee panels. After the panel assessment, the applications will be assessed in relation to the criterion ‘Relevance to the call for proposals’. The administration will then write a recommendation to the granting authority. The granting authority will make the final decision regarding the approval or rejection of grant applications.

See also: Processing applications.

We expect to publish which applications have been awarded funding in December 2022.

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