Supplementary Funding for Ongoing Projects to Enhance Knowledge and Results Transfer from ICT Research to the Defence Sector

Only approved Norwegian research organisations that are the Project Owner of an ongoing Researcher Project or Collaborative and Knowledge-building Project in the Research Council’s ICT portfolio can apply.

See the list of approved Norwegian research organisations.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner

The Project Owner must be the same as the one specified in the contract for the ongoing project.

The research organisation defined as the Project Owner in the application form must have formally approved submission of the application.

If the application is a collaboration between several organisations, the Project Owner submits the application on behalf of all the partners.

Requirements relating to project managers

The project manager must be the same as the one specified in the contract for the ongoing project.

Requirements relating to partners

Partners in the project seeking supplementary funding should preferably have formal roles in the ongoing project. We may allow other partners that are not participating/have not participated in the ongoing project if they provide added value to the project seeking supplementary funding. A description of the added value must be provided in the application. Approved Norwegian research organisations and equivalent foreign organisations are eligible to participate as partners in the project and receive funding.

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. You can apply for funding for large-scale concrete measures and activities that are not already part of the ongoing project.

Activities that are covered include:

• bringing new partners or resources that represent the defence sector into the project;
• mobility in or out of the project for knowledge and results transfer between the project and representatives of the defence sector, e.g. by project participants going on secondment to agencies in the defence sector and/or defence sector employees going on secondment to research partner organisations;
• extra efforts to disseminate or utilise results from the project that generate knowledge and results transfer to the defence sector and/or that lead to synergies being achieved with other technology initiatives in the defence sector. The activities may be a series of work meetings with relevant actors, dissemination activities such as the establishment of communication channels and networks, or other activities;
• funding of a PhD or a PostDoc with security clearance ‘Secret’ or higher required for access to classified material.
  
  
• It may be more relevant for candidates employed in a company or public enterprise to apply under the call Industrial PhD Scheme  – Doctoral Projects in Industry (forskningsradet.no) or Public Sector PhD project – Doctoral Project in the Public Sector.

All the activities must satisfy the Responsible Research and Innovation requirements; see the document RRI-rammeverk.pdf (in Norwegian only – attachment opens in a new window).

Scope of funding

We can award from NOK 100,000 to NOK 4 million in funding per project seeking supplementary funding under this call.

You can apply for funding to cover up to 100 per cent of the budgeted project costs.

There are no requirements for own funding, but some own financing of researcher time is required for applications from the university and university college sector.

Conditions for funding

The project seeking supplementary funding should, as a rule, start and finish within the project period of the ongoing project. You may exceed the end date of the ongoing project, but the application must in such case clearly state that the project seeking supplementary funding is based on and enhances the results of the ongoing project.

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. 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 Research Council’s requirements relating to allocations 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, available in their entirety on the information page What the contract involves.

From 2022, all grant recipients that are research organisations or public sector bodies (Project Owners and partners) must have a Gender Equality Plan (GEP) available on their website. This must be in place when they sign the grant agreement for projects awarded funding from the Research Council. The requirement does not apply to the business sector, special interest organisations or the non-profit sector.

The Research Council requires full and immediate open access to scientific publications; 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 of projects that process data must prepare a data management plan in connection with the revised application.

Funding will be disbursed in arrears, and only actual expenses entered in the institution’s accounts will be covered. All reporting takes place electronically.

• Requirements relating to the project manager and Project Owner (research organisation) must be satisfied.
• 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 (maximum 5 pages) using the standard template available for download at the end of the call.
• If the application includes funding of PhD or a Post-doctoral research fellows, a confirmation of security clearance and authorisation of the research fellowship must be enclosed, alternatively a confirmation that includes a description of the process of advertising and appointing research fellowships to ensure the security clearance requirement is met.
• CVs of new, key participants not participating in the ongoing project.
• A letter of intent from new project partners.
• See the example letter of intent in our guide.

All requirements set out in the call must be met. Applications that do not meet the formal requirements, or requirements relating to the Project Owner, project manager, collaboration and roles in the project, will not be considered. The application must be within the limits specified for funding amount and duration.

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.

Grant applications will be assessed in relation to the following criteria:

All applications will be assessed by the Research Council administration and read by a minimum of two case officers. The applications will be assessed against the criteria and awarded a mark from 1 to 7 on each criterion, an overall mark and a separate mark for relevance. Applications with an overall mark of 5 or better and a relevance mark of 5 or better will be awarded funding.

Applications with an overall mark of 4 or less and a relevance mark of 4 or less will be rejected.

The administration is responsible for the final decision regarding the approval or rejection of grant applications. 

Notification of the funding decision can be expected 3–6 weeks after the date of submission.