The Aurora Mobility Programme – Researcher Exchange for New Collaboration Between Norway and France

The call is open to approved Norwegian research organisations applying jointly with research organisations in France. 

Requirements relating to the Project Owner 

The organisation must be listed as the Project Owner in the application form and must have authorised you to submit the grant application. 

If the application is a cooperation between several organizations in Norway, the Project Owner must submit the application on behalf of all Norwegian participants. 

Requirements relating to the project manager 

To qualify as project manager, individuals must hold an approved doctorate or have obtained qualifications at associate professorship level (in Norwegian only) by the date of the application submission deadline. In this context, employment in the Norwegian research institute sector in a position as forsker 1 (research professor), forsker 2 (senior). 

Typically, scientific staff/groups of researchers (normally 2–4 persons) will submit grant applications for funding for short-term stays in France. Early career researchers (including doctoral and post-doctoral research fellows) must participate in the travel activities. 

Funding may be sought to cover travel and living expenses in France. Salary and purchase of equipment are not covered under the programme. 

The following rates apply: 

• Funding may be sought in a single grant application for 2–4 persons persons. A maximum of NOK 20 000 may be sought per person per calendar year. The maximum amount of support available per applicant/grant application is NOK 100 000. 
• The Research Council may award funding to cover up to 100 per cent of approved project costs. The Research Council will disburse funding in arrears, based on the reported documented expenses. 
• Travel expenses and actual costs relating to hotel accommodation and per diem according to the government rates for travel abroad. The rates per diem may be reduced if funding is sought for longer stays/multiple project participants. 

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

• Support from the Research Council to a research organisation is to be reserved for the organisation’s non-economic activity, and as such therefore does not constitute state aid. The Research Council requires a clear separation of accounts for the organisation’s economic and non-economic activities. 
• You can find the Research Council's prerequisites for funding in our General terms and conditions for R&D projects on the information page What the contract involves. 
• 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. 
• For medical and health-related studies involving human participants, the Research Council stipulates special requirements and guidelines for registration and disclosure of medical and health-related studies involving human participants. 

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

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 grant application, including all attachments, must be submitted in Norwegian or English. 
• All attachments must be uploaded in PDF format. 

Mandatory attachments 

• A project description of maximum 5 pages using the designated template, found at the end of this call. 
• CVs for the project manager and all project participants in Norway, using the designated template, found at the end of this call. 

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. 

Links to websites and documents, as well as other attachments than those specified above, will not be included in the application review process. There is no technical validation of the content of the attachments to the application you upload to our system, so please make sure that you upload the correct file corresponding to the selected attachment type. 

Grant applications will first be assessed for scientific merit in France, and then by a Research Council administrative panel together with our partners in France. 

Importance will be attached to the following when reviewing grant applications: 

• The exchange helps to establish new collaboration between the applicant institutions in the two countries. 
• There are early career researchers involved in the project. 
• The project team has described plans for any future collaborative projects, particularly under the direction of Horizon Europe. 
• Whether the project manager or this project have received funding under the Aurora mobility programmes during the last two years (2022, 2023). Assuming that all other factors are equal, priority will be given to projects that have not received such funding in the last two years. 

Decisions regarding grant allocations will be published in December 2023.