Research Project for Peace and Reconciliation in the Middle East and North Africa (the MENA Region)
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Important dates
13 Aug 2025
Open for applications
24 Sep 2025
Application deadline
01 Feb 2026
Earliest permitted project start
01 May 2026
Latest permitted project start
30 Apr 2030
Latest permitted project completion date
Important dates
Purpose
Funding is available for research on development in the Middle East and North Africa (the MENA region). The aim of the research is to improve knowledge about the political, social and economic development in the region. This knowledge will provide a better basis for making decisions about Norwegian foreign and aid policy. The research will also contribute to the design and implementation of measures that can lay the foundation for peace and reconciliation in the region and humanitarian aid for civilians affected by conflict.
About the call for proposals
The aim of the call to stimulate high-quality research on the Middle East and North Africa. The region has significant geopolitical, economic and strategic importance, but is also vulnerable to war and conflict, climate change, social and political unrest and social inequalities. The aim of the research should be to contribute to creating a knowledge and decision-making basis for Norwegian foreign and security policy.
The call is specifically aimed at issues related to foreign policy and international relations. Relevant topics may include:
- the multipolar Middle East and the interests, actions and opportunities of the great powers
- conflict lines, national and regional ambitions, fragile states and illegitimate actors
- governance, cultural identity, religion, social inequality and popular mobilisation
- conflict, humanitarian situation and opportunities for reconciliation and peace
- the development in the Middle East and North Africa and its impact on Europe and Norway
The call is available in both Norwegian and English. The text of the Norwegian call for proposals is legally binding.
Who is eligible to apply?
Only approved Norwegian research organisations are eligible to apply. See the list of approved research organisations.
Who can participate in the project?
Requirements relating to the Project Owner
The organisation listed as the Project Owner in the application form must have approved the submission of the application.
If the application is a collaboration between several organisations, the Project Owner must submit the application on behalf of all partners.
Requirements relating to the project leader
You must have an approved doctoral degree or achieved associate professor qualifications before the application deadline. For the purposes of this call, being or having been employed as researcher 1, researcher 2 or senior researcher in the institute sector is considered to be associate professor competence.
The project leader must be employed by the Project Owner.
Requirements relating to partners
Approved Norwegian research organisations and similar foreign organisations may participate as partners in the project and receive funding.
What can you seek funding for?
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.
We require that you break down the project budget into the following cost types in your application:
- Payroll and indirect expenses, which are costs related to researcher time at the research organisations participating in the project.
- 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.
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 to enter in the project budget on the website.
Scope of support
Funding of NOK 4 – 8 million per project is available under this call. We do not require own financing, but for the higher education sector, we do require some own financing of researcher time.
Ethics
The Research Council requires a high standard of research ethics in the projects we fund, and ethics is included in the assessment criterion for Research Quality - Quality in R&D Activities. In the template for the project description, there is a separate section that deals with this. The description of ethics is first and foremost an assurance to the peers that there is a plan in place to deal with the most important ethical dilemmas in the project. If you need to describe this in more detail, this can be done elsewhere in the project description, for example under method selection, or you can do so in the data management plan(s) (see below).
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 funding do not entail any research ethics approval.
Conditions for funding
Projects must start between 1 February 2026 and 1 May 2026. The latest permitted project completion is 30 April 2030.
In addition, you must be aware of the following if you should receive an award from us:
- The Research Council's conditions for funding can also be found in our general terms and conditions for R&D projects on the information page What the contract involves.
- The project manager and the Project Owner must have assessed and handled the consideration of research security in the project. Research security refers to risks associated with unwanted transfer of knowledge and technology, impact on research and innovation, or breaches of research ethics/integrity where knowledge and technology are used to undermine key societal values.
- Grant recipients that are research organisations and the public sector (Project Owners and partners) must have action plans for gender equality (GEPs) available on their websites. This must be in place before the contract is signed for projects with grants from us. The requirement does not apply to the private sector, interest groups or the voluntary sector.
- 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.
Relevant thematic areas for this call
Democracy and global development
Practical information
Requirements for this funding scheme
You can change and submit the application several times until the application deadline. We recommend that you submit your application as soon as you have completed the application form and uploaded the mandatory attachments. When the application deadline expires, it is the version of the application that was submitted most recently that we process.
- The application and all attachments must be written English.
- All attachments must be in PDF format.
Mandatory attachments
- Project description. Use the standard template that you can download at the bottom of the page.
- CV for the project manager. Use the standard template that you can download at the bottom of the page.
- Description of relevance of a maximum of one page. When describing the application's relevance, we recommend that you read the relevant topic text carefully. Uploaded as attachment type "Other".
Applications that do not meet the requirements above will be rejected.
Optional attachments
- CV for key participants in the project, use the standard template that you download at the bottom of the page.
- You will assess which project participants are the most important, and in which cases it will be of importance for the application processing to assess the project participants' qualifications.
- If you wish, you can attach a brief description of competence or suggestions for up to three peers you believe will be suitable to assess your application. We are not obliged to use the proposals, but can do so if necessary.
All attachments to the application must be submitted with the application. We do 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
Applications will be assessed in light of the purpose of the call and the following criteria:
Excellence – potential for advancing 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
• 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 and gender dimension in research content, and the use of stakeholder/user knowledge if appropriate.
Impact
• 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 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 call for proposals
Administrative procedures
In the application processing, we will use standard application processing with the use of expert panels.
The Research Council may reject applications where the Project Owner or partner has materially breached its obligations in other projects funded by the Research Council in the two years prior to the submission of the application.
The application may be rejected if the project manager has been appointed to the Joint Integrity Committee or the Investigation Committee in the last two years prior to the submission of the application.
Relevance to the call is assessed by the administration. When we award a mark for the application's relevance, we will assess how well the application meets the thematic scope of the call.
In our portfolio assessment, we will take into account that there are
- a good balance between the portfolio's various thematic areas
- a good balance in the portfolio with regard to gender and institution
Read more about the application processing here: How we process applications.
We expect to publish which applications will be awarded on 15 December 2025.