Knowledge-building Project for Industry

The call is open to approved Norwegian research organisations in effective cooperation with relevant actors from public sector entities, non-governmental organisations, the industry sector and/or other private organisations.

See the list of approved Norwegian research organisations.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner

The Project Owner must be a Norwegian research organisation approved by the Research Council (see above).

The organisation listed as the Project Owner in the application form must have approved the submission of the grant application to the Research Council. The application must be aligned with the Project Owner’s strategies.

Requirements relating to project managers

There are no formal requirements of the project manager’s qualifications, but the project manager must be able to document knowledge and expertise in the relevant field and in project management. Peer reviewers will assess the project manager’s professional expertise and suitability.

Please note that you can only be the project manager for one application submitted for either a Collaborative Project to meet Societal and Industry-related Challenges (deadline of 15 February 2023), a Researcher Project for Scientific Renewal or a Researcher Project for Young Talents (application deadline of 8 February 2023 for the two latter).

Requirements relating to partners

Projects are to be carried out by one or more research organisations in effective cooperation with relevant actors from the industry sector and, if relevant, partners from other sectors.

• The project must have at least two Norwegian partners from the industry sector (see the guide for a definition). The minimum requirement is only met if both partners provide cash contributions to the project. The cash contributions must be confirmed in the Letters of Intent.
• The combined cash contribution from the Norwegian partners from the industry sector forms the basis for the maximum amount of funding that the Research Council can provide for the project.
• The project must be carried out in effective collaboration, which means that all partners must actively contribute to the planning and follow-up of the project. Everyone must also contribute to spreading the results and ensuring that new knowledge is used.
• Projects are to have a steering committee or reference group comprising representatives of the project partners.
• The grant application must describe how the project incorporates the strategic objectives of all the partners. This must be confirmed in the Letters of Intent.
• The project must not involve contract research. The project proposal must describe how the knowledge developed in the project will be of benefit to wider user groups.

Roles in the project

One and the same project participant may not be assigned more than one role in the project, e.g. as Project Owner and partner or subcontractor.

The Project Owner and collaborating partners cannot be in a position where they can exercise so-called controlling influence over other collaborating partners or subcontractors in the project. Nor can a subcontractor exercise controlling influence over the Project Owner or collaborating partners. By controlling influence, we mean majority ownership or other specific legal or factual conditions which result in one actor being able to control the other.

The Research Council will not award funding that constitutes state aid under this call. This means that funding from the Research Council can only be used to fund project costs for research organisations.

The costs of Norwegian and international partners that are not research organisations should be excluded from the budget tables. However, the activities these partners will perform, as well as any self-funded activities, should be described in the project description (under section 3.2).

The task-performing role of partners that are not research organisations cannot entail project management or the management of major tasks in the project.

Scope of funding

• The minimum amounts of funding that may be sought is NOK 4 million. Any maximum amounts are described under the respective topics. The projects may last from two to four years.
• The amount of funding awarded by the Research Council may be up to four times the total cash contribution from the Norwegian partners from the industry sector. You should strive to fulfil this requirement for each of the years for which you apply for funding.
• Please note that if any international partners from the industry sector (including Norwegian-registered foreign companies) provide cash contributions, this contribution will not form a basis for funding from the Research Council. The same applies to any cash funding from public bodies

The following cost categories must be used:

Payroll and indirect expenses related to researcher time (including research fellowship positions) at the research organisations. For doctoral research fellowships, funding is limited to a maximum of three full-time equivalents. Funding for two to four years may be granted for post-doctoral research fellowships.

Equipment, encompassing operating and depreciation costs for scientific equipment and research infrastructure necessary for the implementation of the project.

Other operating expenses, which comprise costs for other activities that are necessary to implement the project. Procurements from subcontractors must be specified.

Do not use the item Procurement of R&D services.

You will find important and more detailed information about what to enter in the project budget on the Research Council’s website.

Conditions for funding

• Funding allocated to the research organisations is only to go to their non-economic activity in the form of independent research. It does not therefore constitute state aid. The Research Council requires a clear separation of accounts for the organisation’s economic and non­economic activities.
• Partner companies will not be eligible to receive support to cover project costs. 
• We assume that the research will be carried out in effective collaboration as defined in our General Terms and Conditions for R&D Projects.
• You are required to submit an annual project account report documenting incurred project costs and their financing. The Research Council’s requirements relating to allocation and disbursement of funding are set out in the General Terms and Conditions for R&D Projects.

If your project is granted funding, the following must be in place when you revise your grant application:

• The Project Owner is to draw up collaboration agreements with all Norwegian and international partners in the project. The collaboration agreement is to regulate the reciprocal rights and obligations of the Project Owner and partners in the project and ensure the integrity and independence of the research. It is also to ensure that no participating undertaking receives indirect state aid from a research organisation serving as Project Owner or partner. The agreement must therefore include conditions for the collaboration which ensure compliance with Section 28 of the EFTA Surveillance Authority’s guidelines for state aid for research and development and innovation.
• If the project involves PhD- and postdoctoral fellows whose responsible university/university college institution is not participating in the application, you must also have a collaboration agreement with the responsible/degree-conferring institution.
• 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 industry 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.
• For all projects that manage research data, the Project Owner must ensure that a data management plan is drawn up and uploaded when the grant application is being revised. You will find more information about what the data management plan must contain here.
• The Project Owner is responsible for selecting which archiving solution(s) to use for storing research data generated during the project.

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 grant application form and included all mandatory attachments. After the deadline, it is the most recently submitted version that will be processed.

• The application and all attachments must be submitted in English.
• All mandatory attachments must be included. Attachments must be uploaded in PDF format.
• Requirements relating to the Project Owner (research organisation) and project manager must be satisfied.
• Requirements relating to the partners must be satisfied.
• The project must start between 1 July 2023 and 1 December 2023. Projects approved for funding that have not started within this period may lose their allocation.

Mandatory attachments

• A project description of maximum 11 pages using the designated template found at the end of this call. You must use the template for 2023.
• CVs of the project manager and 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. Project participants who are researchers should use the CV template called "Template for CV researchers". Other project participants should use the CV template called "Template for CV".
• Letters of Intent from all registered research organisations participating as partners.
• Letters of Intent from all registered partners that contribute from the perspective of the industry sector or other part of society.
  • Please see an example of a letter of intent in our Guide for Applicants.

Grant applications that do not satisfy the above requirements will be rejected.

Optional attachments

Applicants are free to enclose a short description of qualifications or propose up to three referees who are presumed to be qualified to review their grant proposal. The Research Council is not under any obligation to use the proposed referees, but may use them as needed. We encourage gender balance in the proposals.

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

All attachments to grant applications must be submitted together with the application form. We do not accept attachments submitted after the application submission deadline unless we have requested additional documentation.

We assess applications in light of the objectives of the application type in question and on the basis of the following criteria:

Your grant application will be assessed as submitted. We cannot take into account how an identical or similar grant application has been assessed previously.

You can read more about the application review process for Collaborative and Knowledge-building Project on the Research Council’s website.

In summary, the process is as follows: Once the grant applications have been received, the Research Council will conduct a preliminary administrative review to ensure that they satisfy all the stipulated formal requirements. Applications that do not meet the formal requirements will be rejected. The applications will then be distributed to thematic referee panels to be assessed in relation to the criteria Excellence, Impact and Implementation. After the panel has completed its assessment, the Research Council will conduct an assessment of the application’s relevance to the call.

From 2023, the referees will assess applications for Collaborative and Knowledge-building Project for open science as part of the criterion Impact. Here you will find more information about assessment of open science in grant applications.

The portfolio boards’ decisions are also based on an overall assessment of the project portfolio. The portfolio assessment takes the following factors into account:

• The applications’ assigned marks based on the assessments.
• The distribution of projects in relation to priorities set out for the specific topic.
• Connections between grant applications received under other calls within the same
• thematic area.
• 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.

The decision meetings of the portfolio boards will be held in the last half of June 2023. The outcome of the application processing will be published after these meetings.