Three-year Researcher Project with International Mobility

Approved Norwegian research organisations may apply. See here for the list of approved Norwegian research organisations.

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 to the Research Council.

Requirements relating to the project manager
You must have completed a doctorate before project start-up. If you have not formally submitted your doctoral dissertation at the time of submission of the grant application, you must forward confirmation that you have submitted your dissertation at the earliest possible date, and at the latest by 15 May 2021, otherwise the grant application will be rejected. Send the confirmation in PDF format by email to post@forskningsradet.no and label it with the project number and name of the project manager.

As of the application submission deadline, no more than seven years may have passed since the date of defence of your doctoral dissertation. You must have defended your dissertation no earlier than 10 February 2014.

If more than seven years have passed, you may apply to subtract leaves of absence, compulsory military service or sick leave in accordance with our rules for subtracting time:

• It is not possible to receive funding for a Three-year Researcher Project with International Mobility more than once.
• As of the application submission deadline, you may not have lived or worked in the country of the host institution for more than 12 months in the past three years.
• As of the application submission deadline, you must have lived or worked in Norway for at least 12 months in the past seven years.
• You must be employed by the Project Owner (Norwegian research organisation) for the entire duration of the project period.
• You must have taken a master’s degree or PhD at a Norwegian research organisation.

You can only be the project manager for one application submitted for either a Three-year Researcher Project with International Mobility (this call), Researcher Project for Scientific Renewal, Researcher Project for Young Talents, Knowledge-building Project for Industry or Collaborative Project to meet Societal and Industry-related Challenges, all with a deadline of either 10 or 17 February 2021.

Requirements relating to partners
Only approved Norwegian research organisations (see under ‘Who is eligible to apply?’ above) and corresponding research organisations in other countries are eligible to be partners and to receive Researcher Project funding.

Other types of organisations, such as companies and other undertakings, may not be project partners in Researcher Projects.

The Project Owner and/or project partners may hire providers of R&D services (sub-contractors) to carry out R&D services or contribute to individual tasks in the project.

Read more about project partners and R&D suppliers here.

See also our information about the state aid rules.

A project participant may not be assigned two different roles in the project. This means that a sub-contractor for the project may not have the role of Project Owner or partner in the same project.

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

You may seek funding to cover actual costs that are necessary to execute 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: Own payroll expenses for three years.
• Procurement of R&D services. The Project Owner and partners may purchase R&D-related services from public and private suppliers individually or together.
• Equipment. This encompasses 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. Here you may enter up to two round-trip tickets between Norway and the host country.

Scope of funding
You may apply for a minimum of NOK 3.0 million and a maximum of NOK 3.9 million to cover project costs. You can use this spreadsheet in calculating the costs.

Own payroll expenses for three years
For the first two years (to be spent abroad), the following rates apply: 

For the third year (to be spent in Norway) the following rates apply:

These rates include overhead costs for the research organisations abroad and in Norway.

Research stays abroad for the first 12 months abroad
See the Research Council’s rates. The amount will be entered automatically if you use the spreadsheet above.

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. 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 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.

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.

For medical and health-related studies involving human participants, the Research Council stipulates special requirements and guidelines for prospective registration of studies and disclosure of results.

Applications must be created and submitted via My RCN Web. 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 must meet the following requirements:

• The application and all attachments must be submitted in English.
• All mandatory attachments must be included.
• Requirements relating to the project manager and Project Owner (research organisation) must be satisfied.
• The project period is three years. You will spend the first two years at a research organisation abroad and the last year at a research organisation in Norway. If necessary, up to two months of the period spent at the Norwegian research organisation can be moved to the start of the project period.
• The project must start between 1 July 2021 and 1 December 2021.
• Funding must be sought from the Research Council for 2021.

Applications that do not satisfy the requirements listed above may be rejected.

Mandatory attachments
The designated templates found at the end of the call for proposals must be used for all attachments.

• A project description, maximum 11 pages.
• A letter of invitation from the host institution abroad (this does not have a designated template).
• A CV for the project manager, maximum four pages.
• Applications for time deductions to meet the experience requirement must be documented (this does not have a designated template). (To be uploaded under Attachments/Other items in the application form.)

Optional attachments

• CVs of key project participants not exceeding four pages each. The CV template at the end of the call must be used.
• Applicants themselves are to decide which project participants are most important and in which cases it will be of significance to the review process to assess these participants’ qualifications.
• Applicants are free to propose up to three referees who are presumed to be impartial and qualified to review the grant proposal.
• The Research Council is not under any obligation to use the proposed referees, but may use them as needed.

Attachments other than the mandatory and optional attachments specified above, as well as any links to websites in the grant application, will not be included in the application review process.

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

See a detailed description of the processing procedure here. 

Preliminary administrative review
Applications that do not meet the formal requirements may be rejected.

Panel assessment
The applications are then assessed by referees, who later take part in a panel meeting and reach final consensus-based marks for the assessment criteria and overall assessment, and prepare consensus-based written assessments.

Portfolio assessment 
When we prioritise between applications for the recommendation to the portfolio boards, the portfolio assessment takes the following into account:

• The applications’ assigned marks based on the assessments.
• The relative volume and quality of grant applications within the same topic under other calls in 2021.
• Any changes in the financial or scientific framework set by the ministries. 
• Priority will be given to projects led by women project managers when the applications are otherwise considered to be on a par. 

Recommendations are presented to the portfolio board, which has the authority to grant funding.

Please note that the amount announced in the call, both overall and per topic, is an estimate of available funding. The final amount of funding granted may therefore deviate somewhat from this estimate.

The procedures described here are subject to change due to the coronavirus situation.