Researcher Project for a Study on Local Elections
Download the call
Download templates
Important dates
03 Dec 2025
Open for applications
28 Jan 2026
Application deadline
01 Sep 2026
Earliest permitted project start
01 Dec 2026
Latest permitted project start
30 Nov 2033
Latest permitted project completion date
Important dates
Purpose
The funds will go to research that continues and renews previous Norwegian Local Election Studies. The results of the research will provide knowledge about what is needed to strengthen local democracy, about local elections, local parties/lists and local candidates, voter behaviour, midterm voter turnout and local politics. Knowledge from the project will be used in the public debate, in teaching and as a basis for policy development and research.
About the call for proposals
The Norwegian Local Election Study will be organised as a seven-year project (2026-2033), starting no later than November 2026, and will include the municipal and county council elections in 2027 and 2031.
We expect the project to build on results from previous Norwegian Local Election Studies, for example by continuing key questions asked in the surveys in previous projects so that changes in voter behaviour over time and between elections are captured. At the same time, new important topics will be captured, such as the importance of new media platforms and AI and trends in media use, and more.
In the project, you must
- actively collaborate with at least two other Norwegian research organisations, of which at least one is a university
- have Norwegian as the main language
- have a dissemination plan for relevant users (e.g. the state, county authorities, municipalities, political parties and citizens, and preferably student groups)
- publish the results of the survey in a book or a joint report and online, no later than two years after each local election has been conducted.
- have a reference group with at least one member from the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development and the Directorate of Elections, respectively
- have an academic reference group with local election and/or local democracy researchers from at least three other countries
- make the research data collected in connection with the project publicly available and hand them over to SIKT no later than two years after each local election, but work to ensure that the data can be shared with (Norwegian) researchers before this
If the application meets the requirements above, priority will be given to a project that:
- has concrete plans for international cooperation and comparative analyses
- assumes a leading role in international local elections and local democracy research
- includes recruitment position(s)
- is interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary
- has a good gender balance in the project team and project management
- collaborates with The Norwegian National Election Study
- has collaboration with relevant panel and/or longitudinal studies
The call is available in both Norwegian and English. The Norwegian text for the 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 research 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 manager
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 manager must be employed by the Project Owner or by one of the partners.
Requirements relating to partners
Approved Norwegian research organisations and similar foreign organisations may participate as partners in the project and receive funding. We require that you collaborate with at least two Norwegian research organisations.
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, related to researcher time (including research fellowship positions and the project manager's position) at the research organisations participating in the project. For doctoral scholarships, the support is limited to three full-time equivalents. For postdoctoral fellowships, the support is limited to a minimum of three years and a maximum of four years. See also our website about postdoctoral research fellowship positions and doctoral research fellowship positions.
- 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 includes operating and depreciation costs for scientific equipment necessary to carry out the project.
The item procurement of R&D services cannot be used.
If doctoral and postdoctoral research fellows are included in the project and there are specific plans for them to stay abroad, this may be included in the application. The Research Council also has a separate call for proposals 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 who are part of the project during the project period.
If there are specific plans for visiting researchers or stays abroad for researchers 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 20 million may be awarded to one project 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 the award do not entail any approval of research ethics.
Prerequisites for the award of funding
The projects must start between 1 September 2026 and 1 December 2026. The latest permitted project completion date is 30 November 2033.
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 in 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 in 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 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.
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 panels. Read more about the application processing here: How we process applications.
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.
The results of the assessment on all criteria are summarised in an overall mark as an overall expression of the application's quality.
The administration then writes a recommendation with recommendations to the portfolio board for Democracy and Global Development. The portfolio board uses the panel's assessment, the relevance assessment and an overall portfolio assessment for the decision on awards.
We expect to publish which applications will be funded on 20 June 2026.