Norway and Singapore Joint Maritime Research Call

Joint proposals must be developed in cooperation between approved research organisations in Norway (See the list of approved research organisations.) and approved research organisations in Singapore Each proposal should have one Norwegian responsible partner (RP) and one Singaporean responsible partner. In Norway, the responsible partner is the Project Owner (applying institution) and in Singapore the responsible partner is the Principal Investigator. The Project Owner in Norway will be the contract partner with RCN and the Principal Investigator in Singapore, the contract partner with SMI.

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. The application must be set up in accordance with the strategies of the Project Owner. 

Requirements relating to the project manager

The project manager's academic competence and suitability to carry out the project will be assessed by peers. There are no formal requirements for the project manager's qualifications. 
The project manager must be employed by the Project Owner or by one of the partners. 

Requirements for collaboration and roles in the project 

• The project must have at least one Singaporean and one Norwegian industry partners that are not research organisations . They should contribute expertise and experience, and ensure that the project and its objectives address real challenges in the industrial sector. 
• Universities, university colleges and institutes whose main task is to conduct research may not have the role of societal or business actor in this call. 
• The application must be strategically supported by all partners. They must confirm this in a letter of intent. 
• You will carry out the project in actual collaboration. Read more in the guide and under Article 25: Important definitions.
• The Project Owner and partners must be independent of each other. This means that one cannot have a controlling influence over the other. This applies both between the Project Owner and the partner, and between all the partners, and the subcontractors and the Project Owner(s) must also be independent of each other. By controlling influence, we mean majority ownership or other specific legal or factual circumstances that mean that one actor can control the other. Read more about such dependencies here.
• Preferably 10 to 30 per cent of the project's total costs should be borne by the industry partners. You make this visible in the table in the project description. 
• One and the same actor cannot have several roles in the project, for example as a partner and subcontractor. 
• The project should have a steering group or reference group in which the partners are represented. 
• The project must not be commissioned research. In the application, you should describe how the expertise built up in the project can benefit larger user groups

You can apply for funding to cover the actual costs necessary to carry out the project. The Project Owner must obtain information on costs from the partners in the project. These costs must be entered in the cost plan under the cost type to which they belong. 

We require that you break down the project budget into the following cost types in your application: 

• Payroll and indirect expenses, which are costs related to researcher time (including research fellowship positions and the project manager's position) at the research organisations participating in the project. For doctoral scholarships, the support is limited to three full-time equivalents. For postdoctoral fellowships, the support is limited to a minimum of three years and a maximum of four years. See our website about postdoctoral research fellowship positions and doctoral research fellowship positions.
• Other operating expenses, which are costs for other activities that are necessary to carry out the project's R&D activities. All costs entered as "other operating expenses" must be specified in the application.
• Equipment, which are costs that include operating and depreciation costs for scientific equipment and research infrastructure necessary to carry out the project.

The cost type Procurement of R&D services cannot be used.

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. The Research Council also has a separate call for proposals for research stays abroad for doctoral and post-doctoral research fellows. 

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

The projects can have a duration of up to 48 months, including dissemination and network activities (workshops, conferences). The proposed projects may have a maximum funding of: 

• NOK 7 million per project from RCN for the Norwegian partners
• SGD 1 million per project from SMI for the Singaporean partners

RCN will cover up to 100% of the total Norwegian cost and SMI up to 100% of the total Singaporean cost. Cost for industrial partners will not be covered. The scope of the project should be realistic within the timeframe and budget limitations of the project.

Ethics 

The Research Council requires a high standard of research ethics in the projects we fund, and ethics is included in the assessment criterion for Research Quality. In the template for the project description, there is a separate section that deals with this. The description of ethics is first and foremost an assurance to the peers that there is a plan in place to deal with the most important ethical dilemmas in the project. If you need to describe this in more detail, this can be done elsewhere in the project description, for example under method selection, or you can do so in the data management plan(s) (see below). 

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). 

The panel's assessment and the Research Council's decision regarding funding do not entail any approval of research ethics. 

Conditions for funding  

• We require annual project accounting reports documenting incurred project costs and their financing for the Norwegian partners. The Research Council's prerequisites for awarding and disbursing funding are set out in the General Terms and Conditions for R&D Projects. 
• Singapore Maritime Institute’s prerequisites for awarding and disbursing funding are set out in Term and Conditions of SMI Grants and Guidelines for managing SMI Grants.

In addition, the following applies for Norwegian organisations: 

• Support for a Norwegian 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.

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.  
• he Project Owner must establish a collaboration agreement(s) with all partners in the project. The collaboration agreement is intended to regulate mutual rights and obligations and ensure the integrity and independence of research. The collaboration agreement must also ensure that no collaborating undertaking receives indirect funding from the research organisation that is the Project Owner or from the collaborating research organisation. The cooperation agreement must therefore contain conditions that ensure that ESA's guidelines on state aid for R&D&I, section 28, are complied with.  
• If the project has PhD and postdoctoral research fellows where the responsible higher Norwegian education institution does not participate in the application, you must also have a collaboration agreement with the responsible/degree-conferring institution. 
• 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.
• Norwegian research organizations that receive grants and the public sector (Project Owners and 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 from Norwegian partners, 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 for the data produced by Norwegian partners, where you will find more information about the requirements for data management plans in projects that receive funding from us.  
• The Project Owner decides which archiving solution(s) will be used for storing research data that emerges from the project. 
• For medical and health studies involving humans, the Research Council sets special requirements and guidelines for prospective registration of studies and publication of results.  

Mandatory attachments

The following attachments are mandatory:

• A signed statement from the Singaporean and Norwegian project manager and their respective responsible institutions confirming that the proposal is submitted jointly with the approval of the institution. This document will also state who will be the main Project Manager/Principal Investigator for the project;
•  A project description, which must be limited to a maximum of 11 pages including references; For this particular call, a specific designated template for project descriptions is provided that you can download at the bottom of the page. The cost plan for the Singaporean research team must be included. 
• CVs for the project manager and for the most important project participants, each of a maximum of four pages. You yourself assess which project participants are the most important. Key project participants who are researchers can use the CV template called "Template for CV researchers". Other key project participants can use the CV template called "Template for CV".
• Letters of intent from all the collaborating partners. See sample letter of intent on our guidance page.  

If the application does not contain the above-mentioned documents, it will be rejected

Optional attachments

Applicants are also encouraged to attach a proposal for three to five international referees who are presumed to be impartial and qualified to review the grant proposal.

Application requirements

The application must meet the following criteria in order to not be rejected:

• To achieve a good collaboration between researchers in Singapore and Norway, the project should be well balanced in terms of man hours and costs incurred in the two countries. The Norwegian or the Singaporean share of the costs in the project must therefore not be less than 30 percent of the total cost (cost incurred by qualified research institutions) using a currency exchange rate of 7.5 NOK pr. SGD.
• Grant applications, including the application form, project description and all attachments, must be submitted in English

We assess the applications in light of the purpose of the call and the following criteria:

Assessment and joint decision-making procedure

The project proposals will be assessed by international experts jointly selected by SMI and RCN. Grant proposals will be assessed mainly on the basis of the criteria used for Collaborative and Knowledge-building Project, as well as in relation to the special guidelines, requirements and assessment criteria set out for this call for proposals.

After the expert assessment, both SMI and RCN will internally review the Relevance to the call for proposal and based on the review from the experts and the internal review by Smi and RCN, SMI and RCN jointly perform a ranking of the projects
In order for an application to be funded, the application shall have a grade of 5 or better for all the criteria assessed by the expert reviewers (on a scale from 1 to 7, where 7 is the best). The Portfolio board for Energy and Transport and SMI board is responsible for final approval of grant allocations, and the selected projects will receive funding both from SMI and the RCN.

Selected projects must be approved both by Portfolio board for Energy and Transport and SMI board in order to be funded.

Contracts

The RCN will enter into a contract with the Norwegian responsible partner for the Norwegian part of the project and SMI will offer a Letter of Award to the Singaporean responsible partner for the Singaporean part of the project. 

Agreement on rights to and use of findings and partner obligations (collaboration agreement)

A collaboration agreement detailing the obligations of each partner must be finalized and signed by all partners before the contract with the RCN and Letter of Award by SMI is approved. The collaboration agreement should include specification of the rights to and use of findings (IPR). 

Status and result reporting

The Norwegian Project Owner has the responsibility on behalf of the Norwegian partners, to submit the following within the life span of an approved research project: 

• electronic progress reports on the research co-operation of the preceding period, using a standard reporting format provided on the RCN website
• an annual, financial report on the utilization and employment of the funds during the preceding calendar year for the Norwegian partners, and 
• an ultimate final project report with financial statements upon the completion of the project. 

The final report must consider outputs, outcomes and expected impacts resulting from the research activities.

The Singaporean Principal Investigator is responsible for submitting all standard reports to SMI concerning all Singaporean partners required under the Terms and Conditions of Grant by SMI within the life span of the project.

The Singaporean Principal Investigator and the Norwegian Project Owner has the joint responsibility to submit a yearly scientific progress report presenting the results achieved during the previous year and an ultimate final scientific report at the end of the project. The final report must consider outputs, outcomes and expected impacts resulting from the research activities.

Both the Principal Investigator in Singapore and the Project Owner in Norway must assist and co-operate with the SMI and the RCN respectively in performing audits, follow-ups and evaluations, as well as providing any other information that the agencies may request, including records and documents.

Anticipated date for notification of results of application process

Anticipated announcement of results will be in mid-June 2027. Results will be published on the Research Council’s website. Written notification will also be sent.