Arctic Field Grant (AFG) – Funding for Fieldwork in Svalbard

The application must be submitted by the project owner (an approved Norwegian research organisation). See the list of approved research organisations. 

Requirements relating to the Project Owner 

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

Requirements relating to the project manager 

The project manager is the person for whom funding is applied for and who will carry out the fieldwork. He/she must be a master's student, a doctoral student or a more experienced researcher (who is not currently established in Svalbard) affiliated with the Project Owner. Applicants who are not employed by or enrolled as a Master's or PhD student with the Project Owner are eligible for AFG if, and only if, their project is carried out in close collaboration with the Project Owner. 

Collaboration  partners must not be listed in the application form but may be mentioned in the project description. You must therefore not enter costs or financing for partners in the budget.

Scope of support 

You can apply for a maximum of NOK 120,000. 

You can apply for funding to cover costs related to fieldwork in Svalbard (including Bjørnøya and Hopen) or on Jan Mayen. 

Funding can be applied for one named project manager (student/researcher). Funds cannot be transferred to another person or year. 

We can cover the cost of a maximum of one field assistant only if it is necessary for safety reasons. We only cover travel costs to Svalbard for the field assistant if you can justify why, due to special qualifications or skills, you cannot use a local field assistant. 

We only cover helicopter rental when it is absolutely necessary and other means of transport are not possible. You should coordinate boat rental and helicopter transport with other projects (see Research in Svalbard Portal)  

You can apply for funding to cover supplementary costs for fieldwork, as it is not intended to fully fund a project. We provide support to cover direct costs related to field-based collection of data and samples for a project, as well as an additional 5 per cent for the project owner (the responsible organisation). 

A calculator for fieldwork costs is available at the end of this call. 

The following items must be specified in the application form: 

• Travel to Svalbard 
• Cost of stay 
• Local transport 
• Purchase 
• Equipment rental costs 
• Rental of facilities in Ny-Ålesund 
• Institutional supplement (5 per cent of the total) 
• Field assistant (if needed for safety reasons) 

The support may not be used for: 

• Personell costs 
• Compensation for time at sea/in the field or for regular working hours (for applicants or field assistants) 
• Compensation for the use of private equipment (e.g. snowmobile, clothing) 
• Purchase of instruments and other equipment 
• Any kind of analysis costs, including laboratory work, except for securing samples and preparing samples for shipment 
• Participation in courses, conferences or seminars 
• Travel to Longyearbyen from the mainland for people who are already in Svalbard (residents or permanent residents, UNIS employees, permanent employees at research bases, course participants, etc.). 

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

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

• The Research Council's prerequisites for awards can also be found in our general terms and conditions for R&D projects on the information page What the contract consists of.  

The Project Owner must submit two reports one month after the end date of the project, a science and field report and a financial report. An EHF invoice must be submitted together with the financial report. 

As part of the reporting, the project must be registered and kept updated in the Research in Svalbard portal (RiS). A description of the data (metadata) should be uploaded to the portal as part of the report.  

Project managers must ensure that these reports are delivered. Both reports must be in English, follow the AFG templates and submitted as two separate high-resolution PDF files via My RCN Web. 

The financial report must include an official financial report issued by the Project Owner and must show that the expenses have been paid by the Norwegian institution or reimbursed by the institution in accordance with the budget. Any additions must be documented. 

The Research Council disburses the funding in arrears after the final report has been approved, and you will only be reimbursed for actual costs that have been entered in the Project Owner's  accounts. 

The application must be created and submitted via My RCN Web. You can change and submit the application several times until the application deadline. We recommend that you submit your application as soon as you have completed the application form and uploaded the required attachments. When the application deadline expires, it is the version of the application that was submitted most recently that we process. 

The application must meet the following requirements: 

• The project manager must be in the right category. 
• The application must be within the topic/purpose specified in the call. 
• The application amount, including own funding, and the amount applied for must correspond to the framework for the call. 
• The budget must be set up correctly, in the right template for the budget, so that it is clear what funding is being sought for. 
• The application form must be complete. 
• The requested attachments must be attached and in the correct template. 
• The application and all attachments must be written in English. 

Mandatory attachments 

The mandatory attachments must be written in the standard templates that can be found at the bottom of the call. 

• Project description of max 3 pages 
• CV for project manager, max 4 pages 
• an itemized budget. Uploaded under "Other". 
• A signed confirmation from the project owner. Uploaded under "Other". 

A description of the collaboration, written by the project owner, including what the benefits are for both parties, must be uploaded under "Other". This attachment is mandatory for all applicants who are not registered as a master's student or doctoral student at, or employed by, the project owner.  

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

All documents and a HowTo can be found on SSF's website.  

All attachments to the application must be submitted with the application. We do 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 attachments other 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. 

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

Priority will be given to projects with a female project manager when the applications are otherwise assessed equally.

Applications are processed by the Research Council's administration. Advice is sought from a panel consisting of external experts with extensive experience from Svalbard. The final decision on funding is made administratively by the Research Council. The Research Council will not provide the applicant with individual feedback on the application's strengths or weaknesses or marks following the application review. 

We expect to publish which applications will receive funding on 15.01.2025. 

See also: How we process applications.