Pilot Health Phase 1
Download the call
Important dates
March 2027
Expected response to the application
Important dates
Purpose
Through the Pilot Health scheme, we fund innovation processes that can contribute to sustainability in the healthcare services and to value creation in Norwegian business and industry, in line with Report No. 18 to the Storting (2018–2019) "The health industry – together on value creation and better services".
The innovation processes must be based on the needs of patients, citizens or the public healthcare services.
About the call for proposals
This call for proposals is phase 1 of a two-stage application process in which we will select new Pilot Health projects. Phase 1 is open to everyone, while phase 2 will be a closed call and only invited applicants, from phase 1 are eligible to apply. The phase 2 application must be based on the same project submitted to phase 1, but with a detailed projects description.
Through effective collaboration, public and private actors will jointly develop good solutions that reach patients and citizens more quickly. The needs of healthcare services and industry are equally important in the Pilot Health scheme, and these must therefore be equally represented in the project.
In this funding scheme, we aim to finance innovation projects that will increase sustainability of the healthcare services, i.e. offering safe, equal, adapted and high-quality services to all citizens, without straining either the services or the society. The new solutions must be developed for both a Norwegian and international market.
Summary page for Pilot Health.
What characterises a Pilot Health project?
The purpose of a Pilot Health project is to:
- be based on recognised, specific needs in the specialist healthcare service and/or the municipal healthcare service, whether the needs come from patients, residents or the service itself.
- be an ambitious innovation pathway for future implementation and scaling, both nationally and internationally.
- collaborate with several actors across the public, private and possibly actors from the voluntary sector that meet the users' needs in a good way. The project must involve relevant service levels and actors who will test the technology or service that is being developed. The innovation must be applicable and easy to implement in practice.
A requirement for a Health Pilot project is that it must:
- include R&D activities that contribute to the development of innovative technologies, processes, products or services that respond to identified and clarified needs.
- include R&D activities that help ensure that these solutions can be implemented, commercialised and scaled after or in parallel with the R&D project.
- describe, justify and demonstrate how the innovation will be deployed, in the application and throughout the project period.
- be able to clearly present and quantify benefits of the innovation in both the public and private sectors. The project will describe expected benefits through concrete and measurable indicators, such as scope of service use, resource savings, quality improvements, user/patient benefit, market opportunities and expected value creation.
Priorities for this call
The call is open to projects that meet clearly defined needs in the healthcare services, based on broad stakeholder involvement. Innovations from the projects must also contribute to sustainability, societal benefits and value creation in the healthcare services and the Norwegian health industry.
In this call, we will prioritise Pilot Health projects that address the following topics:
- Coordination between the primary and specialist healthcare services
- Prevention and coping
- Live at home longer (digital follow-up/home hospital)
- Emergency preparedness (prevention, civil and military)
By sustainability in the healthcare service, we mean that in the future, the healthcare services will be able to offer safe, equal and personalised high-quality services to all citizens without an increased overall burden on the services, society or the environment. The Research Council wishes that the results of the projects contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Research Council has prepared a guide to the UN Sustainable Development Goals that may be helpful for the applicants. (in Norwegian).
In the project, we expect you to plan users’ involvement and user perspectives, and these should be clearly outlined in the project description. Users’ involvement is particularly important when assessing their needs, testing in the development phase and activities related to the deployment of a new solution.
By innovations we mean new or significantly improved solutions, services, processes, organisational forms or marketing models that are used to achieve value creation and benefit society. To contribute to value creation in Norwegian business and industry, the developed solutions should have a market potential both in Norway and internationally.
The value-creation potential for companies is an expression of the expected financial benefits of the project (e.g. increased turnover, reduced costs, increased productivity) after completion of industrialisation and commercialisation of the results you achieve.
Effective collaboration is defined as cooperation between at least two independent parties in order to exchange knowledge or technology or to achieve a common goal on the basis of a division of labour, where the parties jointly define the scope of the collaborative project, contribute to its implementation and share risks and results. One or more parties may bear all the costs associated with the project and thus relieve other parties of financial risk. Commissioned research and the provision of research services are not considered to be a form of cooperation.
The call is available in both Norwegian and English. The Norwegian text of the call is legally binding.
Who is eligible to apply?
The Project Owner must be either:
- a public sector enterprise with an organisation number in Norway and representing the healthcare sector (including municipalities). See the definition of public sector.
or
- a business that is registered in the Norwegian Register of Business Enterprises and has economic activity in Norway
Universities and university colleges cannot apply, i.e. be the Project Owner.
Sole proprietorships, clusters, industry associations and technology transfer offices (TTO) cannot be applicants. In other words, they cannot be the Project Owner or partners.
Project employees who are to be paid by the project must be employed by the Project Owner or by one of the partners.
Who can participate in the project?
Requirements relating to partners and roles
It is a requirement that several partners are behind the application. Partners enter into effective collaboration with the Project Owner, meaning, among other things, that they share both the risk associated with the project and the results that result from it. They must also contribute their own funding. The Project Owner and the partners must enter into a consortium agreement. This agreement must regulate the rights to use and commercial exploitation of the results.
If the Project Owner submitting the application is a company, collaboration with at least one public sector body that is registered with an organisation number in Norway is required. This agency must represent the healthcare sector (municipalities are included).
If the Project Owner is a public enterprise, there is a requirement for collaboration with at least one enterprise that is registered in the Norwegian Register of Business Enterprises and that has economic activity in Norway.
Norwegian and foreign research organisations, expert groups or R&D-performing companies may participate in the project as R&D providers, with responsibility for carrying out R&D work on behalf of the Project Owner and partners. R&D providers must not contribute to funding the project and do not normally have rights to project results. They submit work on assignment and must receive a market price for this. If they are nevertheless to retain rights to results, the market value of the rights they retain must be deducted from the price of the services they provide.
Relevant user organisations, clusters, the voluntary sector, sole proprietorships and/or other relevant actors may participate in the project as subcontractors. The subcontractors' roles in the project must be described in the project description, and the costs must be entered into either the Project Owner or the partner's budget in the application. Sole proprietorships and private limited companies without employees may only contribute to the project with minor assignments.
Note that the Project Owner and partners must be independent of each other, which means that one cannot have a controlling influence over the other. This follows from the definition of partner in our general terms and conditions for R&D projects, in conjunction with the definition of actual collaboration. Nor can R&D providers have a controlling influence over or be controlled by the Project Owner or partner. By controlling influence, we mean that one has a majority of shares or can otherwise control the other.
It is the application with the relevant partners and R&D providers at the time of application that is the starting point for – and a decisive condition for – the allocation of funding. If you make changes to the composition of the project before any contract is signed, our commitment to funding may be withdrawn.
Requirements relating to the project manager
It is an advantage if the project manager has previous experience of public-private innovation collaboration. The project manager's academic competence and suitability to carry out the project will be assessed by the referee panel in phase 2.
Requirements relating to user participation
In Health Pilot projects, we expect you to encourage user participation, and the user perspective must be clearly stated in the project description. In this context, we mean patients and/or citizens, professional users/user organisations and/or those who will deliver the service.
What can you seek funding for?
The Research Council's funding for Health Pilot projects is only to be used for R&D activities. In the project description, you must outline a plan for implementation, scaling and commercialisation, but we do not fund costs for these activities.
Aid to companies and other enterprises (either as Project Owner or partner) constitutes state aid, and the R&D activities supported must be industrial research or experimental development as defined in the state aid rules (see "Article 25: Important definitions" on our state aid page). In the application form's progress plan, categorise the R&D activities by selecting either "Industrial research" or "Experimental development" from the drop-down menu.
We do not provide support for activities of an operational nature and for measures to exploit the R&D results, such as protection of intellectual property rights, market research and marketing and production/completion of products and services to be marketed.
Support for public actors must be allocated to R&D activities and to activities that are necessary to be able to adapt the organisation, systems and work processes so that the developed solution(s) in the project can be procured and implemented after the completion of the R&D project. In the progress plan of the application form, you must mark the R&D activities as "Main activity".
You can apply for funding to cover the following project costs that are actual costs and that are necessary to carry out the project:
- Payroll and indirect expenses
- Procurement of R&D services from expertise environments/research organisations
- Equipment (rental/depreciation instruments and equipment)
- Other operating expenses
You can find detailed and relevant information about what to enter in the project budget on the website. All project costs must be budgeted in accordance with the Research Council's guidelines.
We will only provide support for costs that can be recorded in the Project Owner's or partners' official accounts.
Scope of the support
The degree of support for project costs will vary depending on the composition of the Project Owner and project partners.
For public agencies, the aid intensity will be limited to 80 per cent of approved total project costs.
For the companies, the aid intensity depends on the size of the company and the type of R&D activities. The aid intensity may therefore vary from 25 to 70 per cent, cf. the state aid rules (see Article 25: Aid for research and development projects, EU's definition of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and the table below)
|
Type of company/type of activity |
Industrial research |
Experimental development |
|
Small businesses |
50 % |
45 % |
|
Between companies |
50 % |
35 % |
|
Large companies |
50 % |
25 % |
For approved applications, the funding will be finally determined when we enter into a contract with you. You will receive an offer of a conditional award on the condition that you prepare a revised application in accordance with the allocation decision, cf. the bullet points below.
We do not provide additional support for effective collaboration.
Conditions for funding
Projects must start between 1 January 2028 and 15 August 2028. The latest permitted project end date is 15 August 2032.
Our conditions for funding can be found in the General Terms and Conditions for R&D Projects. For projects funded under this call, this includes a requirement for an annual project accounting report documenting accrued project costs and their funding.
The project must be carried out in effective collaboration between the Project Owner and the partners. The Project Owner and the partners must enter into a consortium agreement that regulates the allocation of the rights to use and commercial exploitation of the results.
Funding to a research organisation goes to the organisation's non-economic activity. It therefore does not constitute state aid. The Research Council assumes that the necessary accounting separation is in place. Aid to "undertakings" constitutes state aid. In this context, an undertaking means any actor that engages in economic activity by offering goods and/or services in a market. When an undertaking is to be reimbursed for part of its project costs, either as Project Owner or as a partner in the project, this must be done in accordance with Article 25 of the General Block Exemption Regulation (Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014). Read more about state aid.
The call for proposals has been notified as an aid scheme to the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) and has the reference: GBER xx/202x/R&D&I (reference forthcoming).
The funding scheme shall be practised 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 state aid rules. In the event of any conflict between the call for proposals and the state aid rules, the latter shall take precedence. For the same reason, the call for proposals may also be adjusted.
The aid that goes to undertakings 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 December 2023.
Aid may not be granted to undertakings that have not complied with the requirements for repayment pursuant to a previous decision by the ESA/EU Commission declaring the aid unlawful and incompatible with the internal market. Nor may aid be granted to undertakings in difficulty within the meaning of EEA law.
The companies participating in the project must submit a self-declaration confirming that they are eligible to receive state aid.
Awarded state aid of €100,000 or more will be published in the "Register of State Aid".
Other public funding to cover the same eligible costs may affect the scope of the Research Council's funding.
When the Project Owner knows that the project will be awarded, it must inform any partners that are listed on the stock exchange or have applied to be admitted to trading on Oslo Børs so that they can assess whether the allocation of project funds constitutes exchange-sensitive information.
In addition, if your projects is awarded funding, please note the following:
- The Research Council's prerequisites for awards 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 Project Owner must have assessed and managed 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 entered into for projects with funding from the Norwegian Research Council. The requirement does not apply to the private sector, special interest organisations 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.
- For medical and health studies involving humans, the Research Council sets requirements and guidelines for registration and disclosure of medical and health-related studies involving human participants.
Relevant thematic areas for this call
Health
Practical information
Requirements for this funding scheme
This is phase 1 of a two-stage call.
Please note that you can only submit the application once. If you submit the application and subsequently 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 – and in this way submit a new version as long as the call is open for applications.
- The application and attachments must be written in Norwegian and/or English.
- Attachments must be in PDF format.
Mandatory attachments
- Project description, maximum 3 pages. 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.
Applications that do not meet the requirements above will be rejected.
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. Please 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.
Administrative procedures
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 Research Council will fund projects that have a place on the road to a low-emission society in line with the Paris Agreement. In cases where two projects have received otherwise equal assessments, the portfolio board will prioritise the project that is most sustainable in terms of its effects on climate, the environment and society.
The applications will be assessed administratively with support from the reference group for the scheme and will be approved by the portfolio board for health. Those who receive a positive decision will receive an invitation to apply for phase 2 in the autumn of 2027.
We expect to publish which applications are invited for phase 2 in March 2027.