Functioning of the Financial Market and Ethical Awareness – Funding for Research Projects
Important dates
24 Mar 2021
Date call is made active
12 May 2021
Application submission deadline
09 Nov 2021
Grant meeting
01 Dec 2021
Earliest permitted project start
01 Aug 2022
Latest permitted project start
31 Jul 2026
Latest permitted project completion
Important dates
Purpose
The Finance Market Fund provides funding to research and public information work relating to financial markets. The fund is designed to help to increase knowledge about how financial markets function and to promote greater understanding of relevant ethical issues in this area.
Applications must clearly demonstrate that the project is of relevance in relation to the purpose of the Finance Market Fund and that the funding will have a trigger effect. The grant application must also describe the potential ramifications if the funding amount awarded is smaller than what was originally sought.
Please see the rules set out for the Finance Market Fund at www.finansmarkedsfondet.no (in Norwegian only).
About the call for proposals
The call aims to stimulate high-quality, ground-breaking research at the international research front.
The Norwegian-language call for proposals is the legally binding version.
Who is eligible to apply?
Approved Norwegian research organisations may apply.
See the list of approved Norwegian research organisations.
Who can participate in the project?
Requirements relating to the Project Owner
The research organisation listed as the Project Owner in the application form must have authorised the submission of the grant application to the Research Council.
Requirements relating to the project manager
You must have an approved doctorate or achieved associate professor qualifications before the date of the application submission deadline. For the purposes of this call, you are also qualified if you hold or have held a position as forsker 1 (research professor), forsker 2 (senior researcher) or seniorforsker (senior researcher) in the institute sector.
Requirements relating to partners
Approved Norwegian research organisations and equivalent foreign organisations are eligible to participate as partners in the project and receive funding.
R&D providers
The Project Owner and any partners may hire enterprises to perform R&D activities in the project. The R&D providers’ suitability will be subject to professional assessment. R&D providers may be approved research organisations or other enterprises that conduct significant R&D activity.
What can you seek funding for?
You will find detailed and important information about what to enter in the project budget on our website.
You can apply for funding to cover the actual costs necessary to carry out the project. The Project Owner is to obtain information about costs from each project partner. These costs are to be entered in the cost plan under the relevant category.
Support may be granted for the following costs:
- Payroll and indirect expenses, related to researcher time (including research fellowship positions) at the research organisations participating in the project. For doctoral and post-doctoral research fellowships, this funding is limited to maximum three person-years.
- Procurement of R&D services.
- Equipment, encompassing operating and depreciation costs for scientific equipment and research infrastructure necessary for the execution of the project.
- Operating expenses, which comprise costs for other activities that are necessary to carry out R&D efforts under the project.
Conditions for funding
The Finance Market Fund will not award support that constitutes state aid under this call. This means that funding from the Finance Market Fund is only to go to the non-economic activity of the research organisations. We require a clear separation of accounts for the organisation’s economic and non-economic activities. Companies will not be eligible to receive support to cover projects costs and may not receive indirect support through the granting of any rights to project results.
The Finance Market Fund’s requirements relating to allocation and disbursement of support for the first year, and any pledges and payments for subsequent years, are set out in the Research Council’s General Terms and Conditions for R&D Projects.
Calculation of funding
You can apply for funding for budgeted project costs.
Scientific articles and research data
The Project Owner (research organisation) is responsible for selecting which archiving solution(s) to use for storing research data generated during the project. The Project Owner must specify the planned solution(s) in connection with the revised grant proposal.
Research results are to be made accessible through sharing and publication in line with the Research Council’s Policy on Open Science.
Relevant thematic areas for this call
Policy and government administration areas
Practical information
Requirements for this application type
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 application and all attachments must be written in Norwegian or English.
- All attachments must be uploaded in PDF format.
Mandatory attachments
- A project description using the template available for download at the end of the call.
- The CV of the project manager using the template available for download at the end of the call.
- CVs of key members of the project using the template available for download at the end of the call.
Applications that do not meet the requirements listed above will be rejected.
Optional attachment
- Proposals for up to three referees who are considered qualified to assess the application.
We will not assess documents and websites linked to in the application, or other attachments than those specified above. There is no technical validation of the content of the attachments you upload, so please make sure that you upload the correct file for the selected type of attachment.
Assessment criteria
Grant applications will be assessed on the basis of the following criteria:
Excellence
• Scientific creativity and originality.
• Novelty and boldness of hypotheses or research questions.
• Potential for development of new knowledge beyond the current state-of-the-art, including significant theoretical, methodological, experimental or empirical advancement.
The quality of the proposed R&D activities
• Quality of the research questions, hypotheses and project objectives, and the extent to which they are clearly and adequately specified.
• Credibility and appropriateness of the theoretical approach, research design and use of scientific methods. Appropriate consideration of interdisciplinary approaches.
• The extent to which appropriate consideration has been given to ethical issues, safety issues, gender dimension in research content, and use of stakeholder/user knowledge if appropriate.
Impact
• Potential for academic impact:
The extent to which the planned outputs of the project address important present and/or future scientific challenges.
• Potential for societal impact (if addressed by the applicant):
The extent to which the planned outputs of the project address UN Sustainable Development Goals or other important present and/or future societal challenges.
• The extent to which the potential impacts are clearly formulated and plausible.
Communication and exploitation
• Quality and scope of communication and engagement activities with different target audiences, including relevant stakeholders/users.
Implementation
• The extent to which the project manager has relevant expertise and experience, and demonstrated ability to perform high-quality research (as appropriate to the career stage).
• The degree of complementarity of the participants and the extent to which the project group has the necessary expertise needed to undertake the research effectively.
The quality of the project organisation and management
• Effectiveness of the project organisation, including the extent to which resources assigned to work packages are aligned with project objectives and deliverables.
• Appropriateness of the allocation of tasks, ensuring that all participants have a valid role and adequate resources in the project to fulfil that role.
• Appropriateness of the proposed management structures and governance.
Overall assessment of the referee/panel
Relevance to the call for proposals
Applications must clearly demonstrate that the project is of relevance in relation to the purpose of the Finance Market Fund and that the funding will have a trigger effect. You must also describe the potential ramifications if the funding amount awarded is smaller than what was originally sought.
Please see the rules set out for the Finance Market Fund at www.finansmarkedsfondet.no (in Norwegian only).
The Board of Directors strives to achieve a broad project portfolio across subjects and institutions.
Administrative procedures
All applications will be assessed by international referee panels. After the panel assessment, the applications will be assessed in relation to the criterion ‘Relevance to the call for proposals’. The administration will then write a recommendation to the Board of Directors of the Finance Market Fund. The Board of Directors is responsible for the final decisions regarding grant allocations.
The funding decisions are expected to be announced in November 2021.