Gender Balance, Diversity and Inclusion in Norwegian Research

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

The Project Owner must be a research organisation. 

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

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

Requirements relating to the project manager for the resource centre 

The person who is to lead the competence centre must have the following: 

• Research competence 
• competence on gender balance and diversity in academia 
• experience with project management and network management 

Requirements relating to project managers for projects that are to participate in BalanseHub 

There are no formal requirements for project managers for projects participating in the BalanseHub network, but projects must be firmly anchored in management. 

Requirements relating to partners 

Approved Norwegian research organisations may participate as partners in the project and receive funding. 

You can apply for funding to cover actual costs necessary to carry out the project. The Project Owner is to obtain information about costs from the project partners. These costs are to be entered in the cost plan under the relevant cost category. 

The grant application requires you to break down the project budget into the following cost categories. 

For applications for competence centres, you can apply for funding for: 

• Payroll and indirect expenses: costs incurred by the Project Owner (company) and partners. 
• other operating expenses, which are costs for other activities that are necessary to carry out the project's activities. All costs entered as "other operating expenses" must be specified in the application. 
• You must budget for speakers/presentations at each network gathering and one physical gathering a year. 
• equipment, which includes operating and depreciation costs for scientific equipment necessary to implement the project; 

The cost category Procurement of R&D services should not be used.  

For applications for individual projects to participate in the BalanseHub network, you can apply for funding for: 

• Payroll and indirect expenses: costs incurred by the Project Owner (company) and partners 
• Other operating expenses, which are costs for other activities that are necessary to carry out the project's activities, such as the initiation of measures aimed at gender balance, diversity and inclusion. All costs entered as "other operating expenses" must be specified in the application 
• equipment, which includes operating and depreciation costs for scientific equipment necessary to implement the project; 

The cost category Procurement of R&D services should not be used. 

You will find detailed and important information about what the budget should contain on the website.   

Scope of funding 

We can provide up to NOK 7 million in funding for one application for a resource centre under this call. 

The Research Council may provide up to NOK 1 million in funding per individual project to participate in the BalanseHub scheme under this call. 

In addition, you must be aware of the following if you should receive funding from us: 

• The Research Council's requirements relating to allocations can be found in our General Terms and Conditions for R&D Projects at information page What the contract consists of.  
• The Research Council requires full and immediate open access for scientific articles; see Plan S - open access to publications.  
• For all projects that handle data, the Project Owner must prepare a data management plan in connection with the revised grant application. Here you will find more information about requirements for data management plans in projects that receive funding from the Research Council.  

Funding will be disbursed in arrears, and only actual expenses entered in the institution's accounts will be covered. All reporting shall be done electronically. 

You can amend and submit the application several times up to the application deadline. We recommend that you submit your application as soon as you have completed the application form and uploaded the mandatory attachments. When the application deadline expires, it is the version of the application that was submitted most recently that we will process.  

• For knowledge centre applications, the application and all attachments must be written in English. 
• For the BalanseHub network, the application and all attachments must be submitted in Norwegian. 
• All attachments must be in PDF format. 
• The grant application must clearly state whether the applicant is applying for a knowledge-building project or an individual project. 

Mandatory attachments 

• Project description of max 5 pages. Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page. 
• CV for the project manager. Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page. 

Applications that do not satisfy the above requirements will be rejected. 

Optional attachments 

• CVs of key project participants 

All attachments to the application must be submitted with the application. We will not accept attachments submitted after the application deadline unless we have requested additional documentation. 

We will not consider documents and websites linked to in the application, or other attachments than those specified above. Be careful to upload the correct attachment type, as there are no technical restrictions on what kind of templates it is possible to upload in the application form.  

Grant applications that do not satisfy the formal requirements set out in the call will be rejected. 

Grant applications will be assessed in light of the objective of the call and the following criteria: 

We use an overall portfolio assessment as a basis for the decision to award funding to the steering group. This includes the following factors:  

• Relevance to the call 
• The applications' assigned marks based on the assessments 
• Innovative and innovative initiatives 
• distribution of projects on the topics gender balance, diversity and inclusion 

Applications for competence centres are processed by a referee panel, and applications for individual projects are processed administratively. The Research Council's advisers will draw up a ranked recommendation of the grant applications based on their relevance, marks awarded marks and the panel's assessments. It is the steering group for BALANSE+ that makes the final decision on which applications will be awarded support or rejected. All applicants will receive a written explanation of the decision on "My RCN Web". 

After the application review process has been completed, the applicant will receive the referee panel's assessment. The names of the reviewers included in the panel will be published on our website. There we also publish which projects will receive funding. 

Applications that are approved for funding must be revised. During the revision phase, the Research Council requests, among other things, an updated progress plan and budget according to the given framework. 

• See also: How we process applications

We expect to publish which applications will be awarded funding on 15.02.2024.