Research Centre for Selected Professional Education within the Topic of Vulnerable Children and Adolescents

Universities and university colleges with institutional accreditation that have the relevant professional education programmes are eligible to apply.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner 

The Project Owner must be an approved Norwegian research organisation. 

The research organisation listed as the Project Owner in the application form must have approved submission of the grant application. The Project Owner (organisation) submits the grant application on behalf of all partners. 

Requirements relating to the project manager 

• The project manager in the application is the same as the centre director. 
• The project manager must have an approved doctorate or achieved associate professor qualifications before the application submission deadline. 
• The project manager must be employed by the Project Owner (research organisation) (the host institution). 
• If the project manager is not employed by the host institution at the application deadline, a signed confirmation must be submitted from the project manager (see the template "Confirmation for Centre director" at the end of this call) confirming that he/she will work in at least an 80 per cent position for the host institution and the centre and stay at the host institution at least half of the time each year. 

Requirements relating to partners 

• Approved Norwegian research organisations and international research organisations may participate as partners in the centre and receive funding. 
• Relevant actors in the public and/or private sector may also be included as partners in the centre. Please note that only research organisations are eligible to receive support from the Research Council. For more information about this, see 'Conditions for funding' under 'What can you seek funding for'.  
• All partners must actively contribute to the planning and implementation of the centre's activities, disseminate results from the centre's research activities and ensure that new knowledge is put to use. 
• Research activities carried out at the centre are intended to further develop the research field and increase the quality of research in professional disciplines in Norway. If you plan   for parts of the funding to be awarded to international research organisations, you must explain in the project description how the research field in Norway will be further developed as a result of the funding awarded to research organisations. 

Support may be granted for the following costs: 

• Payroll and indirect expenses related to researcher time (including research fellowships) at the research organisations participating in the centre. For doctoral research fellowships, support is limited to a maximum of three full-time equivalents. For postdoctoral fellowships, support may be given for a minimum of 3 full-time equivalents and a maximum of 4 full-time equivalents. To ensure the long-term effect of the centre on Norwegian knowledge preparedness, the establishment of new, permanent researcher positions may be part of the research organisations' plans. Such research positions, which are intended to contribute directly to the centre's activities, may be funded within the centre grant for a period of up to three years.  
• Equipment necessary to implement the project. This includes rental and depreciation costs for scientific equipment, access to national or international research infrastructure, and minor acquisitions and upgrades of existing equipment.  
• Other operating expenses which are costs for other activities that are necessary to carry out the centre's R&D activities. Purchases from subcontractors exceeding NOK 100,000 must be specified.  

The cost type "Procurement of R&D services" in the application form is not to be used.  

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

• You can apply for a maximum of NOK 30 million spread over a period of five years. 
• You can apply for funding to cover actual costs that are necessary to carry out the centre's activities. 
• Research stays abroad for doctoral and post-doctoral research fellows must be covered within the framework of support to the centre. The research centre is therefore not covered by the Research Council's special scheme for support for research stays abroad for doctoral and post-doctoral fellows. 
• State aid will not be awarded under this call. 

Conditions for funding 

The centre must start up between 01.07.2024 and 01.12.2024, and you must apply for funding from the Research Council for 2024. The latest permitted project completion date is 30.11.2029.  

• 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 our General Terms and Conditions for R&D Projects which can be found in full on the information page This is what the contract consists of.  

If you are granted the centre, the following must be in place before you enter into a contract with us: 

• From 2022, all grant recipients that are research organisations and public sector bodies (Project Owners and partners) must have a Gender Equality Plan (GEP) available on their website. The requirement does not apply to private businesses, special interest organisations or the voluntary sector.  
• 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 us.  
• The Project Owner organisation is responsible for selecting which archiving solution(s) to use for storing research data generated during the project. This must be specified in the project's data management plan.  

Reporting and disbursement of funding 

Funding received from the Research Council will be disbursed in arrears on the basis of a digital (so-called EHF) invoice sent by the Project Owner to the Research Council. Only actual expenses entered in the project partners' accounts will be covered. Read more about payment with digital invoice.   

For information on reporting and more, see the document Requirements and guidelines for Research Centres – Research Institution-based Strategic Project  

You can amend and submit the application several times up to the application deadline. We recommend that you submit the 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.  

• The grant application and all attachments must be submitted in English. 
• All attachments must be in PDF format. 

Mandatory attachments 

• Project description of maximum 15 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. 
• CV for work package managers. Use the standard template found at the bottom of the page, max. four pages per CV. Be uploaded under the attachment type "CV" in the application form.  

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

Optional attachments 

• CVs of other key participants in the project in accordance with the guidelines for the application type. 
• Brief description of competence or proposals for up to three referees you believe will be suitable for assessing your application. We are not obliged to use the suggestions but can use them when necessary. 

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 will be assessed in light of the purpose of the call and the following criteria: 

Applications will be assessed by an international referee panel. The panel will assign marks for the three assessment criteria. If the average of the marks is lower than 5, the application will be rejected directly. If the application for one of the main criteria has received a mark of 3 or lower, it will also be rejected directly. After the panel assessment has been completed, the administration will assess the application's relevance to the call for proposals, and then submit a recommendation to the portfolio board. The portfolio board bases its assessment on the referee panel's assessment and the assessment of relevance, and ultimately makes decisions on awards or rejections that may also take account of an overall portfolio assessment, consisting of: 

• Allocation of projects in accordance with the priority areas set out in the call 
• the distribution of projects between the different study programmes 

See also: How we process applications.

The Portfolio Board is scheduled to meet in April/May 2024. We will publish the results of the application review process after the meeting.