Innovation Project for the Industrial Sector: Industry and services

The Project Owner must be registered in the Norwegian Register of Business Enterprises and have economic activity in Norway. By economic activity, we mean offering goods or services in a market. This means that the Project Owner must either be a private company, or a public enterprise that conducts activities of an industrial or commercial nature. For the remainder of the call, we use the collective term "company".  
 
Sole proprietorships cannot be Project Owners, but they can be partners.

We require that the Project Owner carry out the project together with at least one partner (Norwegian company) or procure commissioned research from at least one R&D supplier. You must register these under "Partners and R&D providers" in the application form. 
 
All partners must have defined tasks and a clear role in the implementation of the project. 
 
The Project Owner and partners must be independent of each other. By this we mean that one cannot have a controlling influence over the other. This applies both between the Project Owner and the partner, and between all the partners. 
 
Nor can an R&D provider have a controlling influence over the Project Owner/partners or vice versa. 
 
Read more about such dependencies here. 
 
To be eligible for funding, the partners and R&D providers must participate in the project as described in the application. If you change the composition of the project before we enter into a contract with you, we may withdraw the commitment to funding.  

Partners 

Norwegian companies that are to be partners must also meet the criteria under "Who is eligible to apply?" in order to participate in the project and receive funding. Partners must enter into effective collaboration with the Project Owner, which means, among other things, that they share both the risk in the project and the results from it. The partners whose costs are partly covered by the Research Council's support will be recipients of state aid. Read more about effective collaboration under Article 25: Important definitions.  
 
All partners must have identified costs in the project, but they can choose not to have the costs covered through the award. 
 
Although sole proprietorships cannot be the Project Owner for applications under this call, they may be partners. For such companies, there are separate rules for which costs we can cover.  

R&D Providers 

Norwegian and foreign research organisations and other expert communities can participate in the project as R&D suppliers, with responsibility for carrying out R&D work on behalf of the companies in the project. R&D providers are not required to contribute to financing the project, and therefore do not normally have rights to the project results. They deliver work on commission, and are paid for this work at market price. If an R&D provider is nevertheless to take part in the rights to the project results, the price of the agreed assignment must be adjusted by deducting the market value of the rights from the price. 
 
Where doctoral work is part of the R&D provider's work on the project, you may not impose restrictions on the publication of the doctoral work, with the exception of any pre-agreed postponement of the date of publication. 
 
Since the research organisations' work in the innovation projects is carried out on assignment, the work of universities and university colleges in such projects is defined as contract-funded activity. This means that work performed by PhD candidates must also be invoiced at market price. The rates for this work are not tied to the Research Council's fixed rates for research fellows. Any research fellows who carry out work in these projects do not have the same rights to have their stays abroad covered as research fellows who are wholly or partly funded by the Research Council.  

Other partners 

Actors who are not described above, such as other international and public actors, can participate in the project, but you must not include them as partners in the application form. Instead, you must mention this type of collaboration in the project description, under section 3.2 or 3.3.Read more about collaboration agreements, partners and R&D providers.

You can apply for funding to cover the actual costs necessary to carry out the project. The Project Owner must obtain information on costs from the partners in the project. These costs must be entered in the cost plan under the cost type to which they belong. The following cost types should be used: 

• Payroll and indirect expenses 
• Procurement of R&D services 
• Equipment 
• Other operating expenses 

You can find more information about what costs you can have covered on our website What to enter in the project budget. 
 
All project costs must be budgeted in accordance with the Research Council's guidelines for budgeting.  
 
The Project Owner must ensure funding for the project in addition to the Research Council's funding.  
 
Funding is not awarded to activities that are not directly related to the implementation of the project or to measures to exploit the R&D results, such as the protection of intellectual property rights, market research and marketing, and testing (with the exception of those covered by the definition of experimental development) and the completion of new products and services. We will not provide support for costs that will not be recorded in the Project Owner's or partners' official accounts, such as unpaid work input. You must therefore not include such costs in the budget in the application.  

Scope of funding 

Article 25 of the EU Block Exemption Regulation describes in more detail which activities can be supported and which costs of these activities can be covered in whole or in part. Funding may cover direct and indirect project costs to the extent that they are costs related to industrial research or experimental development.  
 
 Read more about state aid here: Article 25: Support for research and development projects.
 
You can apply for funding to cover up to 50 per cent of the costs of each of the companies in the project. The degree of support for the company's project costs within the framework of 50 per cent depends on the size of the company and the type of R&D activities.  

Please note that we do not support companies to the full extent of what is possible within the framework of the state aid rules. In not doing so, we are able to fund more projects. The state aid rules allow small businesses to have up to 70 per cent of their costs for industrial research covered. For medium-sized companies, the state aid rules allow for coverage of up to 60 per cent for the same costs. Under this call we do not, however, allow for more than 50 per cent of such costs to be covered for either type of company, even if all activities are defined as industrial research  

• Example 1, a small company with all the costs within the category Industrial research: The state aid rules indicate that public support can contribute 70 per cent of the costs, but we will only cover 50 per cent through this particular call.  
• Example 2, a medium-sized company with all the costs within the Experimental development category: The state aid rules indicate that state aid can cover 35 per cent of the costs, and that is what we will cover.  
• Example 3, a small company with half of the costs within the Industrial research category and half within Experimental development: The state aid rules indicate that state aid can cover 57.5 per cent of the total costs, but we only cover up to 47.5 per cent of them.  
• Example 4, a medium-sized company with half of the costs within Industrial research and half within Experimental development: The state aid rules indicate that state aid can cover 47.5 per cent of the costs, but we only cover up to 42.5 per cent of them.  

The fact that the Research Council only allocates up to 50 per cent to industrial research, even though the company could have been covered by up to 70 per cent, means that you can apply for top-up funding from other public schemes, such as Innovation Norway and SkatteFUNN.   

The final amount and percentage of support will be determined when we enter into a contract with you.  

Conditions for funding  

Conditions related to state aid:  

This call constitutes an aid scheme that must be notified to the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) and has the reference: GBER 114/2024/R&D&I.  

The aid under the scheme is awarded in accordance with Article 25 of the Block Exemption Regulation (Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014). In addition, the general conditions in Chapter I of the Regulation must be met.   

See the Consolidated Block Exemption Regulation with amendments up to and including July 2021  (link opens in a new window). The scheme shall be practiced in accordance with the EEA Agreement's state aid rules. Terms and concepts shall be interpreted in accordance with the corresponding terms and concepts in the aid rules. In the event of any conflict between the call and the state aid rules, the latter shall take precedence. For the same reason, the call for proposals may also be adjusted.  

Aid may not be granted to undertakings that have not complied with the requirements for repayment following a previous decision by the ESA/EU Commission declaring the aid illegal and incompatible with the internal market. Nor may aid be granted to undertakings in difficulty within the meaning of EEA law.  
 
If your application is approved, it must be revised. The revised application must contain updated and supplementary information about the project and the partners, including confirmation of implementation capacity and own funding. The companies in the project must also confirm that they are eligible to receive state aid and are not a company in difficulty. 
 
The Research Council's conditions for funding can be found in our general terms and conditions for R&D projects on the information page What the contract involves.    

Ethics 

The Research Council requires a high standard of research ethics in the projects we fund, and ethics are included in our assessment criteria. What you write about ethics in the application is first and foremost an assurance to those who assess it that there is a plan in place to deal with the most important ethical dilemmas in the project. The responsibility for ensuring that the research ethics standard is followed lies with the individual researcher and research institution (cf. the Act on the Organisation of Research Ethics Work). 
 
The panel's assessment and the Research Council's decision on the award therefore do not entail any research ethics approval.  

Other conditions 

In addition, you must be aware of the following if you are awarded funding from us: 

• The latest date for the start of the project will be four months after you are notified of the award. Projects that have not started by this time may lose the grant. 
• Funding from other public actors for the project or for activities included in the project may affect the scope of the Research Council's funding. 
• If you receive state aid from us that is equivalent to EUR 100,000 or more, we will make it known in the Register for State Aid (link opens in a new window).
• The Project Manager and the Project Owner must have assessed and managed the consideration of research security in the project. 
• The Research Council requires full and immediate open access for scientific articles, see Plan S - open access to publications.  
• For all projects that handle data, the Project Owner must prepare a data management plan in connection with the revised application, where you will find more information about the requirements for data management plans in projects that receive funding from us.  
  For medical and health studies involving humans, the Research Council sets special requirements and guidelines for prospective registration of studies and publication of results.  

You must submit an annual project accounting report documenting the costs incurred and how they have been financed.  
 
 You will receive more information about this if your application is approved. 

The application must be created and submitted via My RCN Web. The application and all attachments must be written in Norwegian or English. 

This call has ongoing application reception and processing from the time the call opens. Please note that you can only submit the application once. If you submit the application and shortly afterwards see that it still needs to be changed, you can create a new application, e.g., as a copy of the one you have already submitted. 

• All attachments must be in PDF format and uploaded as attachments in the application form. You will find all application templates at the bottom of the call. 
• In the application form, you must state whether you have applied for funding for the same eligible costs through other calls for proposals from the Research Council or from other donors. 
• All project costs must be budgeted in accordance with the Research Council's guidelines for budgeting. 

Mandatory attachments 

• Project description of a maximum of 10 pages. 
• Partner details for the Project Owner and for each of the companies that are partners. A maximum of one page for each form. R&D suppliers, subcontractors and the public sector are not required to complete this form. 
• CV for the project manager and other key project staff (e.g. responsible for the project's work packages). You can submit a maximum of five CVs per application, and each CV must be a maximum of four pages. 

We will not consider attachments other than those specified above, or documents and websites linked to in the application. The system does not do any technical validation on the content of the attachments you upload, so make sure to upload the correct file for the correct attachment type. 

Applications will be assessed in light of the purpose of the call and the following criteria: 

Once the applications have been received, the Research Council will first check that all formal requirements have been met. Applications that do not satisfy the formal requirements will be rejected. 

In addition, we will assess whether the application meets the thematic limitations set out in the call. Applications that are off topic will be rejected without further consideration. You can only apply for funding for the project once per calendar year, regardless of the call for proposals. Applications that are submitted several times will be rejected without further consideration. The exception is applications that are rejected due to thematic issues. These can apply to the other Innovation Project for the Industrial Sector calls. 

Applications that meet the formal requirements and fall within the thematic delimitations will be processed by external evaluators, who will assess them individually on the basis of the criteria "Excellence", "Impact" and "Implementation". Each application is assessed by at least three such evaluators. 

The grading scale for the criteria goes from 1 to 7, where 7 is best. After the evaluators have made their individual assessments, we calculate an average of the marks per application. 

If the average mark after the individual assessments is 5.0 or higher, the application will receive a joint panel assessment. Applications with an average score of between 4.5 and 5.0 will also receive such a panel assessment, if at least one evaluator has assessed the application at 6.0 or better. 

Applications with an average mark lower than 4.5 will not be further assessed by panels. 

The applications that are assessed by panels will have the above-mentioned criteria summarised in an overall mark as an overall expression of the application's quality. 

It is the Research Council's portfolio boards that decide whether the projects are to be rejected or awarded funding. In addition to the above-mentioned main grade, these boards use the previously mentioned portfolio assessments to prioritize projects. 

The applications are processed on an ongoing basis and in regular decision meetings, until there are no longer funds left. Applications that are received after the budget has been exhausted, but before the call closes, will be rejected without further processing. You can resubmit these applications next year. 

If there are funds left, applications that are not rejected at the first decision meeting can be included in the competition for funding in up to two more decision meetings. This means that if your application has been assessed by panels but is not awarded at the first portfolio board meeting, it may be given a second chance at the next meeting. It is the portfolio board that decides which and how many applications will be included in the next decision meeting.