How Financial Markets Work and Ethical Awareness – Funding for Research Projects
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Important dates
11 Mar 2026
Open for applications
29 Apr 2026
Application deadline
Week 45
Expected response to the application
01 Jan 2027
Earliest permitted project start
01 Aug 2027
Latest permitted project start
01 Jul 2030
Latest permitted project completion date
Important dates
Purpose
The call aims to promote ground-breaking research of scientific quality at the international research frontier. The results must be of relevance to the Norwegian financial market.
The application must clarify the relevance to the purpose of the Finance Markets Fund. In addition, it must show that the support from the Fund has a triggering effect. You must also account for the consequences of any reduced support.
About the call for proposals
The Finance Markets Fund finances research and general information in the financial markets area. The purpose of the Fund is to contribute to increased knowledge and understanding of the functioning of financial markets, and to increase ethical awareness in the financial market area.
The funding is to be used for research in the financial market area, and the results are to be relevant to the Norwegian financial market. Note that the Finance Markets Fund's rules impose special requirements for publication.
The Finance Markets Fund attaches particular importance to clarifying the application's relevance to the purpose of the Finance Markets Fund and that the support from the Fund has a triggering effect. You must account for the consequences of any reduced support. See the Finance Markets Fund's rules on www.finansmarkedsfondet.no.
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 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 equivalent before the application deadline.
You must be employed by the Project Owner or by one of the partners.
You can be the project manager for a maximum of one application (identical or different) by this deadline.
Requirements relating to collaborating partners
We do not require collaboration in this call. If you are going to include collaborating partners, the following applies:
Only approved Norwegian research organisations (see "Who is eligible to apply?" above) or equivalent research organisations in other countries are eligible to be collaborating partners and receive funding under this call.
Other types of organisations, including companies and other enterprises, may not be partners in applications to this call.
All collaborating partners must enter into a collaboration agreement as part of the contract if you are awarded funding from the Research Council.
Read more about partners and collaboration agreements.
About the use of subcontractors
As the Project Owner or collaborating partner in the project, you can engage subcontractors to deliver services and contribute to the implementation of certain tasks in the project. Subcontractors cannot be given rights to project results. Organisations that are subject to the regulations for public procurement must in the usual way carry out the selection of subcontractors in line with these regulations.
You cannot have R&D suppliers in the project.
Read more about the use of subcontractors.
Neither the Project Owner, collaborating partners nor subcontractors may have two or more different roles in the project. This means, for example, that a subcontractor cannot simultaneously be the Project Owner or a collaborating partner in the project.
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 incurred by the Project Owner and collaborating partners
- Other operating expenses, which are costs for other activities 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 cost type Procurement of R&D services is not to 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. Please note that the separate call for proposals has a number of requirements for who can receive support for the stay abroad.
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
The Finance Markets Fund has no lower or upper support limit. We do not require self-financing. If our support does not cover all costs for recruitment positions in the university or university college sector or for research positions in the university and university college sector, we assume that you cover the difference with your own funding. For research positions in the institute sector, you must use the reported hourly rates.
Conditions for funding
We do not award state aid under this call. This means that the funding should only go to their non-economic activity. We assume that the necessary accounting separation is in place. Our prerequisites for the allocation and disbursement of funding for the first year, and any commitments and payments for subsequent years, can be found in our general terms and conditions for R&D projects on the information page What the contract involves.
In addition, you must be aware of the following if you should receive an award from us:
- 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
Policy and government administration areas
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 default template that you can download at the bottom of the page.
- CV for the project manager. Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page.
- CV for key participants in the project. Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page.
Applications that do not meet the requirements above will be rejected.
Optional attachments
- If you wish, you can attach a brief description of competence or suggestions for up to three peers you believe would 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
All applications will be assessed by an international panel. After the panel assessment has been completed, the applications will be assessed with regard to relevance. The management then writes a recommendation to the Finance Markets Fund's Board of Directors. The Board will assess the applications’ relevance in relation to the purpose of the Finance Markets Fund and the Norwegian financial market. The board wants a project portfolio with good professional and institutional diversification. The board will also consider the triggering effect. The board ultimately makes a decision on allocation or rejection.
We expect to publish who will receive funding during week 45.