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Researcher Project for Scientific Renewal (Thematic Priority Call)

4 March 2024: We have removed the technical limit for the maximum amount you can seek in funding in the application form. This was done so that we are able to accept applications for the topic "The National Election Study". You must ensure that you stay within the support limits for the theme you choose. If you have created an application for the topic "The National Election Study", you must create a new application to avoid the old technical limit.

We will have new portfolios from 1 January 2024. The thematic areas in our calls reflect the new portfolios. You will therefore find that some research topics lie under new thematic areas. Under this call, this applies in particular to the following: 

  • Research topic previously under thematic area Oceans: 
    • Marine is located under the thematic area Climate and environment 
    • Aquaculture is under the thematic area Food and bioresources 
  • The research topic Petroleum is under the thematic area Energy and transport 
  • The research topic Culture (formerly under Welfare, culture and society) is located under Welfare and education 
  • The research topic Polar (previously under Climate and polar) is located under the thematic area Climate and environment 

We reserve the right to make changes to the call for proposals after we have received the letter of allocation for 2024. 

Important dates

06 Mar 2024

Open for applications

06 Mar 2024

Application deadline

01 Aug 2024

Earliest permitted project start

01 Apr 2025

Latest permitted project start

31 Aug 2032

Latest permitted project completion date

Important dates

Purpose

The purpose of this call is to support scientific renewal and development in research that can help to advance the international research front within the thematic areas set out in the call. This call is therefore targeted towards researchers who have demonstrated the ability to conduct research of high scientific quality.

About the call for proposals

The purpose of the funding is to encourage high-quality research that can address the challenges and issues described in this call. 

The call encompasses several thematic areas. You must direct your application to one of these. You choose the topic in the application form. For each thematic area, we announce a given amount of funding and specify priorities for selecting the projects to be funded. 

In addition to this call, we have four others with a deadline in March that are aimed at research organisations. The five calls for proposals in total are the three thematic priority Researcher Project calls with a deadline of 6 March 2024 (Researcher Project for Scientific Renewal, Researcher Project for Early Careers and Large Interdisciplinary Researcher Project) and the two calls with deadline 13 March 2024 (Knowledge-building Projects for Industry and Collaborative Project to meet Societal and Industry-related Challenges). The thematic texts under this call provide information about which of the other calls may be of relevance to each thematic area.   

We therefore recommend that you also review any other relevant calls for proposals to see which one is most suitable for your project. Please note that we do not move applications between calls for proposals, and that it is therefore important to apply for the correct call. 

Please also note that you can only serve as project manager on one application for this and our four other March calls. This limitation does not apply to FRIPRO's open-ended calls for proposals. It is therefore possible to apply to one of the five above, even if you have applied for funding from FRIPRO. 

Please note that it is only within Up to NOK 38 million for one electoral research project: the 'Storting election survey' that you can apply for eight years of project duration. For everyone else, you can apply for a maximum of six years of project duration. 

You can create an application and fill in the application form from 24 January.

The call is available in both Norwegian and English. The Norwegian call text is legally binding. 

Who is eligible to apply?

Only approved Norwegian research organisations may apply. See here for 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 approved the submission of the grant application to the Research Council. 

Requirements relating to the project manager 

You must have an approved doctorate or equivalent qualification before the application deadline. 

If you do not have an approved doctorate,but have associate professor qualifications or are employed as forsker 1 (research professor), forsker 2 (senior researcher) or senior researcher in the institute sector or a health trust, you are also eligible to apply. 

Requirements relating to partners 

We do not require partners under this call. If you are going to include partners, the following applies: 

  • Only approved Norwegian research organisations (see under 'Who is eligible to apply?' above) and equivalent research organisations in other countries are eligible to be partners and to receive Researcher Project funding. 
  • Other types of organisations, such as companies and other undertakings, may not be project partners in Researcher Projects. 

Read more about partners

As Project Owner and/or partner in the project, you can engage subcontractors to provide services and contribute to the implementation of certain tasks in the project. Subcontractors may not be granted rights to project results. Organisations that are subject to the regulations for public procurement must in the normal manner carry out the selection of subcontractors in accordance with these regulations. You may not have suppliers of R&D services in the project.  

A project participant may not have two different roles in the project. This means that a sub-contractor may not serve as Project Owner or partner in the project at the same time. 

What can you seek funding for?

You can apply for funding to cover actual costs that are necessary to carry out the project. The Project Owner is to obtain information about costs from the project partners. These costs are to be entered in the cost plan under the relevant cost category. 

The grant application requires you to break down the project budget into the following cost categories: 

  • Payroll and indirect expenses: costs related to researcher time (including research fellowships and the position of project manager) at the research organisations participating in the project. For doctoral research fellowships, support is limited to a maximum of three full-time equivalents. For postdoctoral fellowships, support is limited to a minimum of three years and a maximum of four years. See the Regulations relating to terms and conditions of employment for positions such as post-doctoral fellow, research fellow, research assistant and specialist candidate.  
  • Other operating expenses, which are costs for other activities that are necessary to carry out the project's R&D activities. Any purchases from subcontractors must be entered here. All costs entered as "other operating expenses" must be specified in the application.  
  • Equipment, which are costs that include operating and depreciation costs for scientific equipment and research infrastructure necessary to carry out the project.  

The cost type Procurement of R&D services should not be used. 

If the project includes doctoral and post-doctoral research fellowships and there are specific plans for research stays abroad for these, this may be included in the application. The Research Council has also issued a separate call for Funding for Research Stays Abroad for Doctoral and Post-doctoral Research Fellows. Here, the project manager can apply for funding for research stays abroad for research fellows participating in the project during the project period. Please note that the separate call for proposals stipulates a number of requirements regarding who is eligible for support for the stay abroad. 

If there are specific plans for visiting researcher stays or stays abroad for researchers participating in the project, this may be included in the application. The rules for such stays and information about rates can be found on the budget information page (see link below). 

You will find detailed and important information about what the budget should contain on the website.   

Scope of funding 

The Research Council may provide NOK 4–12 million in funding per project under this call. Some topics may have a lower upper limit. For the topics to which this applies, the upper limit will be set under the relevant topic. 

We do not require own financing. If our lump sum rates do not cover all costs for recruitment positions in the university and university college sector or for researcher positions in the university and university college sector, we assume that you cover the difference with own funding. For researcher positions in the institute sector, you must use reported hourly rates. 

Conditions for funding 

We will not award funding that constitutes state aid under this call.  This means that funding can only to go to your non-economic activity. We require a clear separation of accounts for the organisation’s economic and non-economic activities. Our requirements relating to allocation and disbursement of support 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 to be found on our information page  This is what the contract consists of.  

If the project is awarded funding, the following must be in place when you revise the grant application: 

Relevant thematic areas for this call

You will find the topics under this call grouped in the thematic areas below. The topics contain special requirements and guidelines that will be given weight when assessing grant applications. 

Democracy and global development

Democracy, governance, administration and societal securityThe National Election StudyDevelopment researchGlobal healthForeign policy, RussiaResearch on Europe

Energy and transportation

Battery materialsPetroleum

Climate and the environment

Marine sectorClimate- and Earth system

Food and bioresources

Fish health and welfareSocietal and market perspectives in aquaculture

Sámi society and culture

Welfare and education

Competence for working lifeSocial and cultural consequences of AIWorking lifeEducation

Practical information

Requirements for this application type

The application must be created and submitted via "My RCN Web". You can revise and resubmit the application several times up to the application deadline. We recommend that you submit your application as soon as you have completed the application form and uploaded the mandatory attachments.  After the deadline, it is the most recently submitted version of the grant application that we will process. 

The application must meet the following requirements: 

  • The grant application and all attachments must be submitted in English, with the exception of the description of relevance to the topic, which may be submitted in Norwegian or English. 
  • All attachments must be in PDF format. 
  • Mandatory attachments must be included. 
  • Requirements relating to the project manager and Project Owner (research organisation) must be satisfied. 
  • The project must start between 1 October 2024 and 1 April 2025 and may last up to 6 years. 
    • Please note that applications for the theme entitled "Up to 38 million for one electoral research project: 'The National Election Survey'" must start in August 2024 with a duration of 8 years.
  • You must clearly demonstrate that the project meets the priorities described in the topic from which funding is being sought. 
  • The application may be rejected if it does not meet the requirements in the list above. 

Mandatory attachments 

  • Project description. 
  • CV for the project manager. 
  • Description of relevance on a maximum of one page. When describing the application's relevance, we recommend that you read the relevant thematic text carefully. Uploaded as attachment type "Other". 
  • Applications that do not satisfy the above requirements will be rejected. You must use default templates for all required attachments.  The templates can be found at the end of the call.  

Optional attachments 

  • CVs for the key project participants, maximum four pages each. It is mandatory to use the CV template at the end of the call. 
    • You will assess which project participants are the most important, and in which cases it will be of significance for the application review process to assess the qualifications of the project participants. 
  • If you wish, you can attach a brief description of competence or proposals for up to three peers you believe will be suitable for assessing your application. We are not under any obligation to use the proposed referees, but may use them as needed. 

All attachments to the application must be submitted with the application. We will not accept attachments submitted after the application deadline unless we have requested additional documentation. 

We will not consider documents and websites linked to in the application, or attachments other than those specified above. Be careful to upload the correct attachment type, as there are no technical restrictions on what kind of templates it is possible to upload in the application form. 

Assessment criteria

We assess applications in light of the objectives of the call for proposals and on the basis of the following criteria:

Excellence – potential for advancing the state-of-the-art

The extent to which the proposed work is ambitious, novel, and goes beyond the state-of-the-art
• Scientific creativity and originality.
• Novelty and boldness of hypotheses or research questions.
• Potential for development of new knowledge beyond the current state-of-the-art, including significant theoretical, methodological, experimental or empirical advancement.

Excellence – quality of R&D activities

The quality of the proposed R&D activities
• Quality of the research questions, hypotheses and project objectives, and the extent to which they are clearly and adequately specified.
• Credibility and appropriateness of the theoretical approach, research design and use of scientific methods. Appropriate consideration of interdisciplinary approaches.
• The extent to which appropriate consideration has been given to ethical issues, safety issues, gender dimension in research content, and use of stakeholder/user knowledge if appropriate.

Impact

Potential impact of the proposed research
• Potential for academic impact:
The extent to which the planned outputs of the project address important present and/or future scientific challenges.
The extent to which the planned outputs are openly accessible to ensure reusability of the research outputs and enhance reproducibility.
• Potential for societal impact (if addressed by the applicant):
The extent to which the planned outputs of the project address UN Sustainable Development Goals or other important present and/or future societal challenges.
• The extent to which the potential impacts are clearly formulated and plausible.

Communication and exploitation
• The extent to which the appropriate open science practices are implemented as an integral part of the proposed project to ensure open sharing and wide distribution of research outputs.
• Quality and scope of communication and engagement activities with different target audiences, including relevant stakeholders/users.

Implementation

The quality of the project manager and project group
• The extent to which the project manager has relevant expertise and experience, and demonstrated ability to perform high-quality research (as appropriate to the career stage).
• The degree of complementarity of the participants and the extent to which the project group has the necessary expertise needed to undertake the research effectively.

The quality of the project organisation and management
• Effectiveness of the project organisation, including the extent to which resources assigned to work packages are aligned with project objectives and deliverables.
• Appropriateness of the allocation of tasks, ensuring that all participants have a valid role and adequate resources in the project to fulfil that role.
• Appropriateness of the proposed management structures and governance.

Relevance to the chosen topic

The extent to which the project satisfies the priorities in the chosen topic in the call for proposals.

Administrative procedures

We will consider your application as it has been submitted, and cannot take into account how an equal or approximately the same application has been assessed previously by us. 

Here you can read more about the treatment procedure for Researcher Projects. 

In brief, the process is as follows: Once the applications have been received, the Research Council will first carry out a preliminary assessment to check that all formal requirements are met. Applications that do not satisfy the formal requirements may be rejected. 

In addition, grant applications that fall outside the thematic delimitations set out in the call will be rejected. Decisions to this effect are made by the individual portfolio boards. 

The applications will then be distributed to thematic referee panels for an assessment of the criteria Research quality – potential for advancing the state-of-the-art, Research quality – quality of R&D activities, Impact and Implementation.

If all of the referee panel's assessment of all criteria is 5 or higher, the application will also be assessed by the Research Council's case officers on the basis of the criterion 'Relevance to the call for proposals'. The assessment and marks for all four criteria will be consolidated into an overall mark that indicates the merit of the application.          

From 2023, referees will assess applications for Researcher Projects on Open Research Practice as part of the impact and impact criterion. On this website you will find more information about the assessment of open research in grant applications.  

After the panel has completed its assessment, we will assess the application's relevance to the call. The Research Council also bases its decisions by the portfolio boards on an overall portfolio assessment. This takes into account the following factors:  

  • The applications' assigned marks based on the assessments. 
  • A good distribution of projects in accordance with priority areas set out in the thematic area. 
  • The relationship between the number of applications and the quality of the applications within the same topic in other calls for proposals in 2024. 
  • Any changes in the ministries' financial or scientific framework for funding. 

See also: How we process applications

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