Public Sector PhD Project – Doctoral Project in the Public Sector 2026

Public sector bodies can apply, see the Research Council's definition of the public sector: 

State, regional or local authorities, bodies governed by public law and associations formed by one or more such authorities or bodies governed by public law. By body governed by public law, we mean any body: 

a. which has been established specifically for the purpose of meeting needs in the public interest which are not of an industrial or commercial nature, and
b. which is a legal person, and
c. which is financed primarily by state, regional or local governments, or other bodies governed by public law, or which is subject to the administrative control of such bodies, or which has an administrative, management or control body in which more than half of its members are appointed by state, regional, local or other bodies governed by public law. 

Organisations that are approved by the Research Council as a research organisation are not eligible to apply for an Official PhD, see the Research Council's list of approved research organisations. This also includes health trusts and technology transfer offices (TTOs).   

The Public Sector Ph.D. scheme does not allow for state aid, and companies may therefore not be applicants or partners in a Public Sector Ph.D. project. 

The Project Owner (Public Enterprise) must carry out the doctoral project in collaboration with a Norwegian or foreign degree-conferring institution (university or university college). 

Other public actors may be partners in the project under certain conditions. Read more about this under "Cooperation with other actors". 

The Research Council sets the following requirements for the Project Owner and the degree-conferring institution: 

Requirements relating to the Project Owner (Public Sector Agency) 

• The doctoral project must be relevant to the company's R&D needs. 
• The Project Owner must have the financial ability to implement the project and ensure funding for the project throughout the project period, including in the event of any delays. 
• The project will be carried out in either three or four full calendar years. In three-year projects, the candidate works 100 percent on the doctoral project. In four-year projects, the candidate works at least 75 per cent of the time on the doctoral project, and 25 per cent of the time on other tasks. 
• The candidate must be employed by the Project Owner throughout the project period. The candidate must be employed in a 100 per cent position for three years for three-year projects, and in at least a 75 per cent position for four years for four-year projects.  The latest allowed hire date is the project's start date. 
• The employment relationship must take into account that there may be delays. The Research Council assumes that the candidate's employment and working conditions are in line with Norwegian legislation. 
• The Project Owner must appoint an internal mentor in the project and set aside sufficient time and resources for the doctoral project to be carried out. The role of mentor must be filled by a person with relevant expertise for the project's subject matter, but the person does not need to have a doctorate. An internal mentor can be hired from another actor if the company does not have relevant expertise. 

Requirements for the doctoral candidate 

• The candidate must be named at the time of application. You cannot apply for funding for projects without a specific candidate. It is also not possible to change candidates along the way. 
• The candidate must have an approved master's degree at the time of application. 
• The Research Council only provides funding for projects with candidates who do not already have a doctoral degree. 
• The scheme does not support the completion of doctoral degrees. 

Requirements relating to degree-conferring institutions 

• The degree-conferring institution is responsible for ensuring that the doctoral project, and thus the doctoral degree to be defended at the institution, meets the same requirements for academic level as the institution's other doctoral degrees, and complies with the institution's regulations for doctoral education with regard to admission, completion and assessment. The Research Council does not carry out any scientific assessment and quality assurance of the project, but assumes that this has been carried out by the degree-conferring institution. 
• The process of admission to a doctoral programme must have been initiated at the time of application. Documentation of final admission must be submitted afterwards if the application is approved. 
• In order to ensure the necessary independence and integrity in the research, we require that the main supervisor and any other co-supervisors from the degree-conferring institution do not have financial interests or ownership interests in the applicant's activities, in accordance with the university's guidelines for objectivity and impartiality. 
• If the degree-conferring institution is a foreign institution, the Project Owner must document that the degree awarded by the foreign institution is on a par with a doctoral degree awarded at a Norwegian university. 

Requirements for collaboration and organisation of the project 

• The Project Owner and the degree-conferring institution must jointly offer the candidate a satisfactory academic environment and good support for carrying out the doctoral project. 
  • Two progress meetings will be held per year. These meetings must include the candidate, the project manager and/or the administrative manager and mentor at the Project Owner and the main supervisor at the degree-conferring institution. The meetings will help to evaluate the project's development and look at any challenges at an early stage, as well as ensure continuous communication with the Research Council about the project's progress. The minutes of meetings must be submitted to the Research Council on request. 
• The candidate must spend at least one year at the degree-conferring institution and at least one year at the Project Owner. This also applies if the degree-conferring institution is outside Norway. The stay does not have to be continuous, but can be divided into several shorter stays spread over the project period. 

Requirements for the cooperation agreement 

The Project Owner and the degree-conferring institution must enter into a written collaboration agreement as follows, see our general terms and conditions. The Public Sector PhD scheme sets out the following requirements for the cooperation agreement: 

• The agreement must be valid throughout the project period. The agreement period must be specified in the agreement document. 
• The distribution of results and questions about intellectual property rights must be clarified. 
• The mentor at the Project Owner and the supervisor at the degree-conferring institution must be specified with the name, role and employer. 
• The agreement shall not prevent the candidate from publishing the results and defending their thesis on the basis of them. This must be specified in the agreement. 
• It must be specified that the candidate must spend at least one year at the public sector and at least one year at a degree-conferring institution. The time can be distributed as it is most appropriate for the project. 
• It must be specified that the parties must hold a collaboration meeting at least once per semester. 
• Requirements for the candidate's work obligation must be clarified. This can also be part of a separate employment agreement between the candidate and the company. In four-year projects, it must be specified where the research fellow's work duties are to be performed. 
• Funding and distribution of costs among each partner in the doctoral project must be stated. 

Read more about collaboration agreements on the Research Council's website.   

Collaboration with other actors 

Public Sector PhD is a policy instrument that is basically aimed at individual enterprises in collaboration with a degree-conferring institution. However, the scheme also allows several public actors to join forces on a Public Sector PhD project, provided that the collaboration is in accordance with the requirements of the collaboration agreement (see above). Companies cannot be partners. In a Public Sector PhD project where several public agencies are included as partners, the following requirements must be met: 

• The Project Owner's share of the project may be distributed among several partners, but the Project Owner must contribute the largest share. 
• A binding collaboration agreement must be entered into between the Project Owner and the partners in the project. The agreement must clarify all relevant matters, including intellectual property rights (IPR), distribution of results and financial conditions. The Research Council requires that a single joint agreement be entered into if there are several partners in addition to the Project Owner and the degree-conferring institution in the project. 
• The Project Owner must be able to demonstrate a plan for how the project can be completed in the event that partners withdraw during the project. 

You can apply for funding to cover the actual costs necessary to carry out the doctoral project. These costs must be entered in the cost plan under the cost type to which they belong. Please note that the project ends after the thesis has been submitted for the first time. The Research Council encourages applicants to consult the company's payroll or finance department during the preparation of the budget. The costs at the degree-conferring institution must be collected from the institution's finance department and entered in the total budget. 

All project costs must be budgeted in accordance with the Research Council's guidelines for budgeting. You will find detailed and important information about what to enter in the project budget on the website.  

In the application, the Project Owner must set up a budget that shows all costs directly related to the implementation of the doctoral project. 

In the application, we require that the costs be divided into the following cost types: 

• Payroll and indirect expenses: This is where salary and personnel costs for personnel in the public sector, such as candidates and internal mentors, and salary and personnel costs at degree-conferring institutions are entered. The costs must be calculated on the basis of hourly rates per person participating in the project. The calculation basis you use, i.e. which costs you include in the hourly rate, must be described in the application in the specification field under the budget tables. There are different guidelines for calculating hourly rates for people in the enterprise and at degree-conferring institutions. Please read the guidelines and follow the examples of calculating hourly costs and indirect costs:  
  • See guidelines for calculating payroll and indirect expenses in the public sector  
  • See guidelines for calculating hourly rates in the higher education sector (degree-conferring institution).     
• Procurement of R&D services: These are costs for the procurement of R&D services such as laboratory activities, analyses, etc. from an R&D supplier that is not a partner in the project. https://www.forskningsradet.no/finansiering/hvordan-skrive-soknad/budsjett/   
• Equipment: Please note that there are restrictions on the equipment costs that can be included in the budget. It is therefore important that you read the guidelines carefully. https://www.forskningsradet.no/finansiering/hvordan-skrive-soknad/budsjett/ 
• Other operating expenses: These are costs for literature purchases, conference trips, participation in research schools, operating costs for laboratory experiments, etc. See guidelines for other operating expenses.   

Calculation of the support 

The table below shows the maximum amount of funding from the Research Council for Public Sector PhD projects per year and month. You calculate the support per month from the start date: 

The aid is corrected in line with accounted actual costs. Funding may not exceed 50 per cent of the total approved project costs. This means that if the reported costs are lower than budgeted, the Research Council's disbursement will be reduced so that it does not amount to more than 50 per cent of the project costs. 

Ethics 

The Research Council requires a high standard of research ethics in the projects we fund, and ethics are included in our assessment criteria. A plan must be in place to deal with the most important ethical dilemmas in the project. The responsibility for compliance with the research ethics standard lies with the individual researcher and research organisation (cf. the Act on the Organisation of Research Ethics Work). 

The Research Council's decision on the award therefore does not entail any approval of research ethics. 

Prerequisites for the award of funding 

Projects must start between 10 August 2026 and 4 January 2027. The latest permitted project completion date is 3 January 2031. 

In addition, you must be aware of the following if you should receive an award from us: 

• It is a general principle that projects that receive funding from the Research Council must have a place on the road to achieving Norway's commitments under the Paris Agreement and the low-emission society in 2050. Read more here: The Government's climate status and plan - regjeringen.no 
• 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 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.  
• 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 special requirements and guidelines for prospective registration of studies and publication of results.  

Participation in research schools and support for stays abroad 

Support for stays abroad 

Enterprises that receive support through the Public Sector PhD Scheme can also apply for support for stays abroad for their doctoral candidate if the degree-conferring institution is Norwegian. See separate call for proposals for research stays abroad for doctoral and post-doctoral research fellows. 

Research Schools 

The research schools will raise the quality and relevance of doctoral education through collaboration in networks. We recommend all candidates to consider the possibility of participating in a graduate school. Costs for participation can be included in the budget. See a list of national research schools here: Scheme for National Researcher Schools 

The application must be created and submitted via My RCN Web. The application and all attachments must be written in Norwegian or English. All attachments must be in PDF format and uploaded as attachments in the application form. You will find all attachment templates at the bottom of the call. 

This call has ongoing application reception and processing from the time the call opens. 

Please note that you can only submit the application once. If you submit the application and shortly afterwards see that it needs to be changed, you must create a new application, e.g. as a copy of the one you have already submitted. Then you must withdraw the first application by sending an e-mail about this. The new application will be placed in a new, later position in the order of processing. 

The application form 

• The formal roles in the project, i.e. the administrative manager and the project manager, must be held by employees of the Project Owner in the public sector and cannot be filled by the PhD candidate. 
  • The person responsible for administration must have the right to sign for the enterprise and must be able to commit the enterprise in a Public Sector PhD project. The administrative officer must approve the application before it is submitted and must sign, among other things, the contract and reports during the project period. 
  • The project manager in the organisation has reporting responsibility to the Research Council and is the primary contact person for the Public Sector PhD project. The project manager is also responsible for the project's progress. 
• The degree-conferring institution, and any other public agencies or institutions that are part of an actual collaboration, must be listed under "Partners and R&D providers" in the application form. 
• The degree-conferring institution and any partners must be registered as "funding and performing". The Project Owner and the Research Council must not be listed as partners. 
• Main activities and milestones during the project period must include: 
  • Compulsory and elective courses at degree-conferring institutions and possibly other universities/university colleges 
  • progress meetings at least once per semester 
  • Midway evaluation at degree-conferring institution 
  • Milestones for the planned articles 
  • The submission of the thesis must be the final milestone of the project. We consider the submission of the thesis to be the conclusion of the project. We do not wait for the public defence as this may take longer. 
• In the specification field of the cost plan, you must describe how you have arrived at the hourly rate for the project staff, and how many hours per year you have calculated per project employee. 
• If you have used the maximum hourly rate (NOK 1100), you must justify this. The number of hours for the candidate may not exceed 1850 per year in 3-year projects and 1389 per year in 4-year projects. See an example of the calculated hourly rate on the Research Council's website, here: Calculating payroll and indirect expenses. Also specify the costs of the degree-conferring institution, i.e. state the amount for supervision and the amount for indirect costs (e.g. office). Also, specify any "Other operating expenses".   

Attachment to the application 

All mandatory attachments must follow the templates in this year's call. You will find all the attachment templates at the bottom of the call. All attachments must be in PDF format. 

Parts of our application processing are digitized. It is therefore important that you keep the header in your documents. The system does not do any technical validation on the content of the attachments you upload, so make sure to upload the correct file for the correct attachment type. 

Applications that do not meet the criteria for applying will be rejected. 

Applications that have not attached all mandatory attachments will be rejected. 

We will not consider attachments other than those specified above, or documents and websites linked to in the application. 

Mandatory attachments 

1. Project description of a maximum of 10 A4 pages (use the standard template found below) 
2. Information about the applicant and partnerrs (use the standard template found below) 
3. Confirmation of participation in a doctoral project (to be uploaded under the attachment type "Other". Use the default template which you can find below) 
4. CV for the candidate: Only the candidate's CV should be uploaded (use the standard template for CV which you can find below) 

This call will be received and processed on an ongoing basis from the opening of this call, and applications will be processed administratively by the Research Council. Applications are processed on an ongoing basis in the order in which they are received, and in regular decision meetings, until there are no longer any funds left. If the funds are used up, the call will be updated with information that the call is closed. Applications that are received after the budget has been used up, but before the call closes, will be rejected without further processing. 

Within twelve weeks of the application deadline, the enterprise will receive feedback on either the grant or rejection via email. Reservations are made for a possible extension of the processing time during periods of holiday and increased demand. Responses will be communicated via My RCN RCN Network to the project manager and administrative manager. We expect to publish which applications will be awarded on an ongoing basis. 

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. 

If the application is conditionally approved, the applicant will receive a letter containing a request for additional information and a revision of the application. In the revised application, the applicant will be asked to write a popular science summary of the project, prepare a data management plan, and any other clarifications or corrections related to the application. The deadline for submitting a revised application is usually two weeks. If necessary, the applicant can request an extended deadline.  

Once the requested additional information and application revisions have been approved, we will post a contract on My RCN Web. A signed collaboration agreement with the degree-conferring institution and any other partners must be uploaded as an attachment to the contract. There is a three-month deadline from the date of publication to accept the contract. The contract is valid after we have approved the submitted contract and attachment. 

Please note that all project activity carried out before the contract with the Research Council has been signed is at the project partners' own risk. 

The Research Council's general terms and conditions for R&D projects apply to all projects awarded under the scheme. See more on our website: What the contract involves.   

Reporting and disbursement of funding 

You must submit an annual project accounting report documenting the costs incurred and how they are financed. 

We disburse the funding in arrears. You will receive more information about this if your application is approved.