The Aurora Mobility Programme – Researcher Exchange for New Collaboration Between Norway and France

The call is open to approved Norwegian research organisations applying jointly with research organisations in France. Typically, scientific staff/groups of researchers (normally 2–4 persons) will submit grant applications for funding for short-term stays in France. Early career researchers (including doctoral and post-doctoral research fellows) must participate in the travel activities.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner

The organisation must be listed as the Project Owner in the application form and must have authorised you to submit the grant application.

Requirements relating to the project manager

To qualify as project manager, individuals must hold an approved doctorate or have obtained qualifications at associate professorship level (in Norwegian only) by the date of the application submission deadline. In this context, employment in the Norwegian research institute sector in a position as forsker 1 (research professor), forsker 2 (senior).

Funding may be sought to cover travel and living expenses in France. Salary and purchase of equipment are not covered under the programme. The following rates apply:

• Travel expenses and actual costs relating to hotel accommodation and per diem according to the government rates for travel abroad.
• Funding may be sought in a single grant application for multiple persons to participate in the same event. A maximum of NOK 20 000 may be sought per person per calendar year. The maximum amount of support available per applicant/grant application is NOK 100 000. The Research Council may award funding to cover up to 100 per cent of approved project costs. The Research Council will disburse funding in arrears, based on the reported documented expenses.
• The rates per diem may be reduced if funding is sought for longer stays/multiple project participants.

Conditions for funding

Support from the Research Council to a research organisation is to be reserved for the organisation’s non-economic activity, and as such therefore does not constitute state aid. The Research Council requires a clear separation of accounts for the organisation’s economic and non-economic activities.

The Research Council requires full and immediate open access to scientific articles; see Plan S – open access to publications.

Research data must be made available in accordance with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable). The Project Owner organisation of projects that process data must prepare a data management plan in connection with the revised application.

The Project Owner organisation is responsible for selecting which archiving solution(s) to use for storing research data generated during the project.

You may revise and resubmit your grant application form multiple times up to the application submission deadline. We recommend that you submit your application as soon as you have filled in the application form and included all mandatory attachments. After the deadline, it is the most recently submitted version of the grant application that will be processed.

• The grant application, including all attachments, must be submitted in Norwegian or English.
• All attachments must be uploaded in PDF format.

Mandatory attachments

• A project description using the designated template, found at the end of this call.
• CVs for the project manager and all project participants in Norway, using the designated template, found at the end of this call.

Links to websites and documents, as well as other attachments than those specified above, will not be included in the application review process. There is no technical validation of the content of the attachments to the application you upload to our system, so please make sure that you upload the correct file corresponding to the selected attachment type.

Grant applications will first be assessed for scientific merit in France,  and then by a Research Council administrative panel together with our partners in France.

Importance will be attached to the following when reviewing grant applications:

• The exchange helps to establish new collaboration between the applicant institutions in the two countries.
• There are early career researchers involved in the project.
• There is adequate gender balance in the project. Assuming that all other factors are equal, priority will be given to projects led by women project managers.
• The project team has described plans for any future collaborative projects, particularly under the direction of Horizon Europe.
• Whether the applicants or this project have received funding under the Aurora mobility programmes during the last two years (2020, 2021). Assuming that all other factors are equal, priority will be given to projects that have not received such funding in the last two years.

Grant applications must satisfy the following requirements:

• The applicant/Project Owner must come from an eligible category of institution.
• The grant application must lie within the scope/satisfy the objectives of this call.
• The funding amount sought, expenses to be covered and own financing to be provided must be in keeping with the framework of the call.
• The budget must be formulated correctly to clearly indicate what the funding will cover.
• The application form must be fully completed.
• The required attachments must be included using the designated templates.
• The project description must provide answers to the items set out in the text of the call.
• Applicants must complete all items in the designated template for the project description. Please answer all questions as concretely as possible.

Funding decisions

Decisions regarding grant allocations will be taken by a Norwegian-French committee with representatives from the Norwegian Research Council, the French Embassy in Norway and the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. Norwegian applicants will thus not have the right to lodge complaints in accordance with the Research Council’s general guidelines, nor will they be given direct access to the assessments of their grant proposal. The application result will be published in December 2021.