Researcher Project for Early Career Scientists on Global Health and Development Research

The purpose of this call is to give researchers the opportunity to pursue their own ideas and to lead research projects in development research and global health. The call is aimed at early-stage researchers who have demonstrated the potential to conduct research of high scientific quality, and the project must be carried out in collaboration with equitable partners in low- and lower-middle-income countries.

Funding is available for research on challenges and opportunities that are particularly relevant to low- and lower-middle-income countries, and that address the following priorities in the Portfolio Plan for Democracy and Global Development:

• Priority 3: Research that provides increased knowledge about poverty, inequality and development
• Priority 4: Research to reduce health inequalities and strengthen health security

Applications must be clearly anchored in one or both priorities as described in the portfolio plan for democracy and global development.

Applicants are encouraged to explore links between priorities 3 and 4, and to develop research questions and collaboration across these.

Partners from low- and lower-middle-income countries

You must have partners from low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs), i.e. research partners who are located in countries defined in the OECD DAC list as "least developed countries, low-income countries, and lower middle-income countries and territories which are not LDCs".

Partners from Colombia, Gaza and the West Bank will also be considered partners from LLMICs in this call.

The collaboration with the LLMIC partners must be based on principles of equitable partnership, and the applications must specify how the following points are addressed in the project:

• A fair distribution of funds and institutional costs with partner institutions in LLMICs. The distribution of funds to and costs among partners in LLMICs must be proportionate to their expected roles, involvement and responsibilities in the project.
• Joint leadership with project managers from the LLMIC institutions on the scientific content of the project.
• Strengthening individual competence and institutional capacity of partner institutions in LLMICs. Individual competence involves the inclusion of students, research fellows or young researchers in the project.
• Equitable sharing of credits, e.g. scientific analyses, authorship, intellectual property rights and dissemination.

Find more information about the requirements for equitable partnerships in the Guidelines and tools for responsible international knowledge cooperation, under the chapter entitled How to achieve equality in a partnership?.

Research organisations in high-income countries and upper-middle-income countries outside Norway may also be partners in the project but may receive a maximum of 20 per cent of our total funding.

User participation

You must describe how users, such as decision-makers, the administration, civil society organisations and citizens, are involved in the planning and implementation of the project and the exploitation of the results.

The portfolio board will prioritise projects that:

• covers the breadth of topics under priorities 3 and 4 in the portfolio plan
• ensures a balanced distribution between priorities 3 and 4 in the portfolio plan

We will strive for a good balance with regard to gender, institution and geographical spread.

• Democracy as a form of government and way of life

The Project Owner must be an approved Norwegian research organisation. You can find an overview of approved research organisations here.

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.

Experience requirements: You must have an approved doctoral degree, and you must have defended your thesis no earlier than 11 March 2019 and no later than 1 June 2024.

If more than seven years have passed since the date of the public defence on 11 March 2026, you can apply for a deduction for statutory leave, compulsory military or civilian service, asylum seeker or refugee status or sick leave in accordance with our deduction rules. See more information about this in the section on deduction rules below.

• You must work at least 25 percent of a full-time position in the project during the project period.
• You must be employed in at least 50 per cent of a position at the Project Owner research organisation throughout the project period. You can be/be employed in a position as a postdoctoral research fellow, researcher or other academic position. You can, but do not have to, be employed by the Project Owner when you submit the application.

You can apply for a deduction if you have:

• had statutory leave,
• completed compulsory military military service or civilian service (up to 12 months deducted for each of these),
• applied for asylum or refugee status (deduction for the period from submission until you receive an answer to your application for asylum or refugee status and/or the granting of a residence permit), or
• had continuous full-time and/or part-time sick leave corresponding to at least eight weeks of full-time absence.

The deduction periods must have taken place after the date of the public defence of your doctoral thesis.

In order to grant a deduction, we require that you submit documentation of what you are applying for a deduction for, after the application deadline. You will receive further information on how to do this. If you want to apply for a deduction, you must mention this under "Additional information" in the description of competence for the project manager. You can find more information about the description of competence here.

We accept documentation from NAV, a doctor/health service or other public bodies/entities (in Norway or another country) and your employer. Documentation from your supervisor/former supervisor is not sufficient. If you use documentation from your employer, it must be from the employer's administration, such as the HR department.

The documentation must be in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or English, or you must include an approved translation into one of these languages.

We follow the leave rules described in the Working Environment Act (arbeidsmiljøloven), and you can apply for a deduction for leave that you would have been entitled to if you lived in Norway when you were on leave.

For example, you can claim a deduction for parental leave in a country where parental leave is not required by law, if you actually had parental leave. The requirement is that you can document the leave as described above.

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 collaborating partners.
• All collaborating partners must enter into a collaboration agreement with the Project Owner if they are awarded funding from the Research Council.

Read more about collaborating partners.

You cannot include R&D providers in the project.

Foreign organisations similar to Norwegian research organisations are eligible for funding under this call. Other foreign organisations are not eligible to participate in the project.

Read about collaboration with organisations abroad.

The Project Owner or collaborating partners may 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.

Read more about the use of subcontractors.

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. We also have 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 you have 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 page about work packages and budgets under the section Other project expenses.

Funding of NOK 4–10 million per project is available under this call. We do not require own financing.

We do not award state aid under this call. This means that the funding should only go to your organisation’s non-economic activity. We assume that the necessary accounting separation is in place. Our conditions for funding and the disbursement of funding can be found in our general terms and conditions for funding for R&D projects (in Norwegian, English version will be available shortly).

The Research Council requires a high standard of research ethics in the projects we fund. You must provide a brief description of how ethical issues will be handled, to show the panel that you have an appropriate plan for this.

The responsibility for ensuring that the research ethics standard is followed lies with the individual researcher and research organisation (cf. the Research Ethics Act). The panel's assessment and the Research Council's decision regarding funding do not entail any approval of research ethics.

For more information, see the Research Council's page Ethical standards in research.

If your application is awarded funding, you must be aware of the following:

• The project manager and the Project Owner must have assessed and managed any issue of research security in the project. Research security refers to the risks related to undesirable transfer of knowledge and technology, malign influence on research and innovation or violations of research ethics or integrity, where knowledge and technology are used to undermine key societal values.
• Grant recipients in research organisations and the public sector (Project Owners and collaborating partners) must have action plans for gender equality (GEPs) available on their websites. 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.
• For medical and health studies involving humans, the Research Council sets special requirements and guidelines for prospective registration of studies and publication of results.