Top-up Financing for Incoming HFSP Postdoctoral Fellowships – Application by Invitation

Only approved Norwegian research organisations are eligible to apply. See the list of approved research organisations.  

The funding is awarded to Norwegian research organisations that hosts an incoming HFSP Postdoctoral Fellowship.

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. 

Requirements relating to the project manager 

The postdoctoral candidate must be the project manager in the application. 

We provide an additional contribution to the funding that the Norwegian host institution receives from HFSP. The contribution is NOK 500,000 per 12 months and is given for up to 36 months. The amount is capped if the HFSP Postdoctoral Fellowship candidate moves to an institution abroad. 

The grant can be used to cover personnel and indirect costs for the research fellow, in addition to the contribution from the HFSP, so that the research fellow receives a salary at the level that is normal practice at the institution. 

Alternatively, the grant can be used to cover other actual costs related to the research fellow's research project. 

In the application, you must break down the project budget into the following cost types: 

• Payroll and indirect expenses, which are costs incurred by the Project Owner. 
• Other operating expenses, which are costs for other activities that are 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 cannot be used.  

You will find detailed and important information about what to enter in the project budget on the website.   

Prerequisites for the award of funding 

The projects must start between 01.06.2026 and 01.06.2027. The latest permitted project completion is 31.05.2030. 

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

• 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.  
• 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.  
• For medical and health studies involving humans, the Research Council sets special requirements and guidelines for prospective registration of studies and publication of results

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 all attachments must be written in Norwegian and/or English. 
• All attachments must be in PDF format. 

Mandatory attachments 

• Project description: A PDF version of the "full proposal" that was sent to HFSP, but without copies of publications. 
• CV for project manager. Use the standard template that you can download at the bottom of the page. 
• Confirmation of a project that received funding from the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP). Uploaded as attachment type "Other". 

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. 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. 

The applications are processed by the Research Council's administration and are a rights-based scheme for applicants who have been invited to submit an application. 

The Research Council of Norway may reject applications where the Project Owner or any partner has significantly breached its obligations in other projects funded by the Research Council within the two years prior to the submission of the application.  

The application may be rejected if the project manager has been found guilty of misconduct by the Joint Integrity Committee or the Investigation Committee in the last two years prior to the submitted application. 

Applications are processed on an ongoing basis by the Research Council's administration. You will normally receive an answer within four weeks. 

We expect to publish which applications will be awarded funding at the end of November 2026.