National Research Schools for Quality and Relevance

Norwegian universities and university colleges with the right to award doctoral degrees can apply.

Research school requirements 

A national research school is a binding collaboration between Norwegian universities and university colleges, which can also collaborate with research institutes, health trusts and foreign universities. 

In this call, we also require collaboration with at least one other organisation, e.g. an actor from the business sector or the public sector. 

The research school must have: 

• a clear organisation with its own acceptance process for doctoral candidates 
• a structured academic programme for the course of study 
• a scientific and administrative management 
• a board that ensures representation from the partner institutions, doctoral candidates and from labour market outside academia 

Requirements for participants and management: 

• The research school should include a minimum of 20 doctoral candidates when in full operation. 
• The scientific manager (project manager) and the board have the overall responsibility for developing the academic activities at the school. 
• The scientific manager (project manager) and the chair of the board must represent different institutions. 

We emphasise that the expected usefulness of the research school is based on both scientific quality and labour market relevance. In the application, you must describe the expected results, impacts and effects in the short and long term, and how these can be documented. 

In the application, you must describe how the research school will ensure that the candidates acquire: 

• theoretical and methodological knowledge and skills to conduct research at a high academic level 
• general skills that are relevant to research and to high-level positions in academia and in labour market in general 
• access to scientific communities and networks 
• insight into one's own competence and the knowledge and skills required to achieve one's own goals and ambitions 
• a good understanding of innovation and how research can be put to use. 

The research school is to ensure that the individual candidate receives an offer of training that is adapted to where they are in the course of their studies and provide the opportunity for personal follow-up. The school must ensure that the candidates participate in active and good interaction with the teaching staff, so that they have influence over their own learning. The candidates must be able to influence the planning of the school's activities. 

You must prepare a plan outlining the educational training elements that will be included in different phases of the course of study. 

We expect the research schools to establish their own website that describes roles, responsibilities and activities, in addition to goal attainment, effects and impact of the activities. 

We also encourage the research schools that are awarded funding to cooperate with each other. The Research Council will invite to annual meetings with the purpose of exchanging ideas and experiences. 

Requirements relating to the Project Owner 

The organisation responsible for hosting the research school is to be listed as the Project Owner in the application form. The application must be strategically anchored with the Project Owner. The responsibility of hosting must be fulfilled by a degree-conferring institution that can demonstrate research of high scientific quality in the area in question. Responsibility for the school's management and operation cannot be delegated. 

Requirements relating to the project manager 

The project manager must have an approved doctoral degree and achieved associate professor qualifications before the application deadline. The project manager must also have experience with research management, doctoral education, and national and/or international collaboration. The project manager's professional competence and suitability will be assessed by a panel. The project manager can be project manager for only one application. 

Requirements relating to partners 

The application must be supported by all partners. All partners must actively contribute to the planning and implementation of the research school's activities. The cooperation will be anchored in agreements. 

Partners from the labour market can be potential employers in the public sector, the private sector and/or organisations. No state aid is granted to partners in the business sector. This means that companies and other enterprises cannot receive support to cover their costs in the research school, but must cover them themselves.

You can apply for support for costs related to the administration of the research school's activities, which will typically be operating costs and personnel costs for administrative follow-up. 

• scientific training activities 
• academic development work 
• networking and interaction activities 
• management and administrative facilitation 

The items Procurement of R&D and Equipment must not be used. 

You cannot apply for doctoral scholarships, operating funds for the implementation of doctoral projects, personnel and indirect costs for the collaborating institutions' researchers and teaching staff, investments or coverage of other expenses related to the institutions' ordinary doctoral education. 

You can find detailed and important information about what to enter into the budget on our website.   

Scope of support 

You can apply for a maximum of NOK 16 million distributed over an eight-year period. 

Prerequisites for funding 

Projects must start between 1 April 2025 and 1 October 2025, and you must apply for funding from the Research Council for 2025. The latest permitted project completion date is 30 September 2033. 

We do not award state aid under this call, and companies are therefore not eligible to receive funding to cover project costs. 

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

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

You can change and submit the application several times until the application submission 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 and all attachments must be written in English. 
• All attachments must be in PDF format. 

Mandatory attachments 

• Project description of a maximum of 10 pages. Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page. 
• CV for project manager. Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page. 
• Declarations of intent/confirmation from collaboration partners in the network and from labour market. 

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

Optional attachments 

• CV for key participants in the project in accordance with the guidelines for the application type. 
• Suggestions for up to three peers who are presumed to be impartial and thereby eligible to assess the application. 

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:

Extension of existing research schools will not be prioritised.

Pre-assessment 

Applications that do not satisfy the formal requirements may be rejected. Applications that are marked with one of the thematic priorities and that are assessed by the administration not to fall under that priority will be considered as part of the open call. 

Panel assessment 

The applications are then assessed by peers with broad expertise, who later gather in a panel meeting and together agree on final marks for the assessment criteria and prepare joint written assessments. An application is only assessed by one panel. 

Threshold 

If the average of the grades is lower than 5, the application will be rejected. If the application for one of the main criteria has received a grade of 3 or lower, it will also be rejected. 

Decision on funding 

The portfolio boards that have announced funding in thematic areas make decisions on the basis of recommendations prepared by the administration. The decision is based on the grades from the panel assessments and a portfolio assessment where relevant. If no applications for the specified thematic areas of the call exceed the threshold value, the funding from the relevant thematic area will be withheld. 

The administration then prepares a recommendation for all applications eligible for funding that have not already been granted funding. The portfolio board for the Research System then makes a decision on allocation, which is based on the panel's assessment and an overall portfolio assessment consisting of: 

• distribution of research schools by subjects and topics 
• inclusion of social sciences and humanities 

Response to the application 

The decision on funding is expected to be made during March 2025. 

See also: How we process applications.