Mandatory project outlines for Research Centre for petroleum (PETROSENTER)

Approved Norwegian research organisations in binding collaboration with partners from other research organisations, the industry sector, the public sector and other societal actors are eligible to apply. 

See the list of approved research organisations.  

The industry sector, the public sector and other societal actors must participate as collaborating partners. 

Requirements relating to the Project Owner 

• The Project Owner must be an approved research organisation. 
• The research organisation listed as the Project Owner in the application form must have approved the submission of the application. 
• The Project Owner submits the application on behalf of all partners. 

Requirements relating to the project manager 

• The project manager (centre manager) must document experience from managing large, complex projects. 
• The project manager must be employed by the Project Owner or by one of the research partners. 
• In the main application, you must state the availability and planned time spent on the tasks of the project manager, work package leaders and any other members of the centre management. 
• The project manager and other project management's professional competence and suitability to carry out the project will be assessed by a peer panel. 

Requirements for the centre and collaborating partners 

• The research in the centre will be carried out by research organisations in binding collaboration with relevant actors in Norwegian business and industry, the public sector, and other societal actors. 
• The application must be strategically anchored with the host institution and all partners. 
• All partners must actively contribute to the planning, follow-up and dissemination of results from the centre, and to ensure that new knowledge is put to use. 
• The centre must have at least three partners that are approved Norwegian research organisations. 
• The centre must have a minimum of three, and preferably more, funding partners that are not research organisations. These are referred to as user partners. 
• The centre must have at least one foreign research partner, and preferably several. 
• The centre may also have foreign user partners. It must be described how any foreign user partners will contribute to achieving the centre's goals. 
• Centres with many user partners place great demands on the organisation of the centre. If there are many user partners, we encourage applicants to differentiate between companies/enterprises that actively participate in research, and companies/enterprises that primarily participate as "listening posts", "problem owners" or similar. The first group may have the status of collaborating partners and be part of the consortium, while the latter group may have a looser connection to the centre, for example in a reference group, and not be part of the consortium itself and the centre budget, nor submit declarations of intent. 
• The centre will have a board where the chairman of the board and the majority of the members come from the user partners. 

No funds are included in the call for outlines.

Please note that an outline can only be submitted once. It is not possible to edit a submitted outline. Therefore, do not press the "submit" button until the outline is completely finished and ready to be submitted. 

When you submit the outline, you will immediately receive an automatic confirmation that the outline has been received. It is your responsibility to make sure that the submission has been confirmed, and if you realise that the outline needs to be changed, you can create a new application – e.g. as a copy of the one you have already submitted – and in this way submit a new version before the deadline. 

The outline must be created and submitted via My RCN Web. You must use the provided template for the outline. You can download this at the bottom of the call. 

Write the outline in Norwegian or English (note that you must write the main application in English). 

The outline description and contact information are uploaded as one PDF file. The document should not exceed five pages, and it is not possible to upload more than this. 

All the outlines will be assessed administratively by the Research Council. 

You will receive a brief written feedback on the outline. The feedback will focus on whether the outline satisfies the formal requirements for a research centre for petroleum and whether it falls within the purpose and framework of the call. 

No applications for the main call will be excluded on the basis of the outline feedback. It is up to you as an applicant on an independent basis to assess whether or not you should prepare an application for the main application deadline. 

We will provide feedback on the outlines in April 2026. 

Please note that we publish an overview of all the outlines (title, summary, Project Owner, contact person and collaborating partners) on the Research Council's website. This will happen during April 2026.