Centre for Research on Special Needs Education and Inclusive Practice

Approved Norwegian research organisations may apply. The Project Owner is also referred to as the ‘host institution’.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner
The research organisation listed as the Project Owner in the grant application must have approved the submission of the grant application. The application must be aligned with the Project Owner’s strategies.

Requirements relating to project managers

• In the application, the project manager is the same person as the centre director.
• You must have an approved doctorate or achieved professor/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.
• You must be employed by the research institution (host institution) that will have the role of Project Owner.
• If the centre director is not employed by the host institution at the time of the application submission deadline, a signed confirmation from the centre director (see the template ‘Confirmation for Centre Director’ at the end of this call) is to be submitted, confirming that she/he will be employed in a minimum of 80 per cent of a full-time position with the host institution and the centre, and be physically present at the host institution for the majority of the time every year.

Requirements relating to collaborating partners

• The centre must cooperate with other research groups at the national and international level.
• Relevant public sector actors may also be included as the centre’s partners. Please note that only research organisations are eligible for funding from the Research Council. For more information, see ‘Conditions for funding’ under the section ‘What can you seek funding for?’
• The grant application must describe how the project incorporates the strategic objectives of all the partners.
• All partners must actively contribute to planning, following up and disseminating the results generated by the centre’s research activities and ensure that new knowledge is taken into use.
• The centre is to help further develop the research field and increase the quality of special needs education research in Norway. Funding for international research organisations should therefore be limited. If you are planning to allocate funding abroad, the project description must explain how this will help to further develop the research field in Norway.

Scope of funding

• You can apply for a maximum of NOK 32 million distributed over a five-year period, with an option to extend for one further five-year period following an evaluation.
• The host institution and partners are expected to contribute funding to highlight their interest and the centre’s strategic foundation.
• State aid will not be granted through this call for proposals.
• You can apply for funding to cover actual costs necessary to carry out the project. You will find detailed and important information about what to enter in the project budget on our website.
• Stays abroad for doctoral and post-doctoral fellows must be covered within the framework of the funding provided for the centre. The centre is thereby not included in the Research Council's scheme for funding for research stays abroad for doctoral and post-doctoral fellows.

Conditions for funding
The Research Council will not award support that constitutes state aid under this call. This means that the Research Council funding is only to go to the non-economic activity of the research organisations in the form of independent research as defined by the EFTA Surveillance Authority’s guidelines. The Research Council requires a clear separation of accounts for the organisation’s economic and non-economic activities.

Companies will not be eligible to receive support to cover project costs and may not receive indirect support by being given rights to project results under favourable terms. However, companies can provide R&D services for the project. Any intellectual property rights arising from the results of the supplier’s work will pass to the client.

See also our information about the state aid rules.

The Research Council’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 General Terms and Conditions for R&D Projects.

Please note that we will adopt new general terms and conditions from 1 January 2021 (same link), and that these will apply to the centre.

Other information
Remember to carefully read the documents Requirements and guidelines for the Centre for Research on Special Needs Education and Inclusive Practice and Success Criteria for Centre for Research on Special Needs Education and Inclusive Practice. You will find links to the documents under the section ‘About the call for proposals’ above (available soon).

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.

In 2025, the centre initiative will be evaluated with a view to considering continued funding in time for the preparation of the budget for 2026.

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 submitted in English.
• All attachments must be uploaded in PDF format.
• The centre’s start-up date must be no later than 1 October 2021, and funding must be sought from the Research Council for 2021. The last permitted end date for the centre is 30 September 2026.

Mandatory attachments

• A project description template is available at the bottom of the page.
• CV of the project manager (centre director) of maximum four pages using the designated template at the bottom of the page. This can be uploaded as ‘CV’ in the application form.
• CVs of work package leaders of maximum four pages per CV, using the designated template at the bottom of the page. This can be uploaded under the category ‘CV’ in the application form.

Applications that do not meet the requirements listed above will be rejected.

Optional attachments

• The CVs of other project participants pursuant to the guidelines that apply to the application type in question.
• A list of 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 uploaded attachments, so please ensure that you upload the correct file for the selected type of attachment.

Grant applications will be assessed on the basis of the following criteria:

Applications will be assessed by an international referee panel. 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 granting authority. The granting authority will make the final decision regarding the approval or rejection of grant applications.

The funding decisions are expected to be announced in June 2021.