Research Centre for Norwegian as an Academic Language
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Important dates
07 Aug 2024
Open for applications
18 Sep 2024
Application deadline
01 Apr 2025
Earliest permitted project start
01 Sep 2025
Latest permitted project start
31 Aug 2033
Latest permitted project completion date
Important dates
Purpose
The purpose of the call is to strengthen Norway's research capacity in the field of Norwegian as an academic language through a long-term commitment to Norwegian language research. The call is aimed at Norwegian academic and research communities within relevant disciplines.
About the call for proposals
The use of Norwegian as an academic language in research and higher education has been under increasing pressure in recent decades. In order for Norwegian to continue to be a full-fledged and society-supporting language in Norway, the Government in 2023 presented an Action plan for Norwegian as a working language in academia (in Norwegian only).
A prerequisite for strengthening Norwegian academic language is sustainable Norwegian linguistics. Several of the relevant linguistic disciplines, including lexicography, terminology, name research and language technology, are currently fragmented and have major recruitment challenges. The important societal interests associated with Norwegian language in general, and the challenges for the use of Norwegian in academia in particular, indicate that there is a need for better national coordination and lasting strengthening of Norwegian linguistics.
Norway needs strong academic communities that conduct research and education in the area, and there is a need for increased recruitment to meet important societal needs. To achieve this, we will now establish one or two national research centres with a larger budget framework and a longer project duration than other funding schemes.
Applications may come from research and education communities in linguistics, language pedagogy/didactics, translation, language technology and other fields of relevance to Norwegian as an academic language. The centre(s) must be strategically tied to the Project Owner and collaborating institutions and ensure collaboration between relevant academic communities in order to secure and strengthen the use of Norwegian academic language in research and higher education.
All applicants must carefully read the document Requirements and guidelines for research centres – Research Institution-based Strategic Project, which, among other things, describe the requirements that apply to the centre’s organisation and responsibilities.
Thematic delimitation
The call is aimed at Norwegian academic and research communities within relevant disciplines. Funding is available for the development of the disciplines and high-quality research. The aim is to build robust communities for research and education that support the following areas:
- Norwegian as an academic and working language – terminology and scientific language in research, education and working life
- Management and documentation of the Norwegian language – lexicography and name search
- Language technology for the Norwegian language
The centre(s) will build up and develop expertise in these areas. The allocation must cover all thematic areas as a whole.
The desired effect of the centre initiative
The centre initiative aims to
- strengthen Norwegian linguistics with relevance to Norwegian as an academic language
- ensure recruitment to meet society's needs, also beyond the funding period for the centre(s)
- produce research of high scientific quality
- promote collaboration across institutions and build and strengthen relevant academic communities in a national perspective
- ensure that research is used in education and in relevant user environments, including in public administration
- ensure knowledge sharing and promoting research results through dialogue arenas and meeting places
- strengthen and support the institutions' strategic priorities related to the relevant disciplines. The application must explain how the centre is intended to be included in the institutions' strategic and long-term commitment in these fields
The centre's organisation
We invite academic communities to collaborate on preparing a joint application. It is not a prerequisite that these academic communities are geographically co-located. The academic and administrative responsibility must be clearly anchored in the Project Owner's institution. Overall, the allocation of research funds should cover all thematic areas.
The centre/centres will be established for an initial period of five years, with an option to extend for a further three-year period following an underway assessment.
As part of the strategic anchoring of the Project Owner and partners, they are expected to contribute with self-financing of the centre(s).
The call is available in both Norwegian and English. The text of the Norwegian call for proposals is legally binding.
Who is eligible to apply?
Only approved Norwegian research organisations are eligible to apply. See the list of approved research organisations.
Who can participate in the project?
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.
If the application is a collaboration between several organisations, the Project Owner must submit the application on behalf of all partners.
Requirements relating to the project manager
- You must have an approved doctoral degree or achieved associate professor qualifications before the application deadline. For the purposes of this call, being or having been employed as researcher 1, researcher 2 or senior researcher in the institute sector is considered to be associate professor competence.
- The Project Manager must be employed by the Project Owner or by one of the partners.
Requirements relating to partners
- Approved Norwegian research organisations and similar foreign organisations may participate as partners in the project and receive funding.
- Relevant actors in the public sector can also be included as partners in the centre.
- The application must be strategically supported by the Project Owner and all partners.
- All partners must actively contribute to the planning and implementation of the centre's activities, dissemination of results from the centre's research activities and ensure that new knowledge is put to use.
- See also the document Requirements and guidelines for research centres (strategic environmental support) on organisation and responsibilities in the centre.
What can you seek funding for?
You can receive support for the following costs:
- Payroll and indirect costs related to researcher time (including research fellowship positions) at the research organisations participating in the centre. For doctoral scholarships, the support is limited to three full-time equivalents. For postdoctoral fellowships, support may be awarded 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 creation of new, permanent research positions may be part of the research organisations' plans. Such research positions, which are intended to contribute directly to the centre's activities, can be funded within the allocation for a period of up to three years. We do not cover salary and personnel costs for other permanent employees at universities or university colleges. An important effect will be increased capacity and higher quality in the research area in the long term. Therefore, it is very important that the researchers in the centre also teach students. Exceptions can be made for the centre manager. Adjunct professor positions may receive funding.
- Equipment necessary to carry out the project. This includes rental and depreciation costs for scientific equipment, access to national or international research infrastructure, and minor new acquisitions and upgrades of existing equipment.
- Other operating costs, which are costs for other activities necessary to carry out the centre's R&D activities. Purchases from subcontractors over NOK 100,000 must be specified.
The cost type "Procurement of R&D services" in the application form cannot be used.
You can apply for support to cover the actual costs necessary to carry out the activities in the centre. You will find detailed and important information about what the budget must contain on the website and more detailed information about the type of application in Requirements and guidelines for research centres (strategic environmental support).
Scope of support
The available budget of NOK 120 million will be used to establish one or two centres. This means that you can apply for a maximum of NOK 120 million over an eight-year period, divided into a maximum of NOK 75 million for the first five years and a maximum of NOK 45 million for the last three years. The funding for the last three years will depend on the outcome of the underway assessment of the centre.
You can apply to the Research Council for up to NOK 15 million per year.
The Project Owner and partners are expected to contribute their own funding to highlight strategic ties to and commitment from the organisations.
Stays abroad for doctoral and postdoctoral research fellows must be covered within the framework of the centre. The research centre is therefore not covered by our call for funding for stays abroad.
Conditions for funding
The projects must start between 01.04.2025 and 01.09.2025. The latest permitted project completion date is 31.08.2033.
We do not award funding that constitutes state aid under the call. Companies are not eligible to receive funding to cover project costs. Support to a research organisation goes to the organisation's non-economic activity and thus does not constitute state aid. The Research Council assumes that the necessary accounting separation is in place.
The Research Council's conditions for the allocation and disbursement of funding for the first year, and any commitments and disbursements for subsequent years, are set out in our general terms and conditions for R&D projects, which you can find in full on the information page This is what the contract consists of.
If you are awarded funding for your centre, the following must be in place before you enter into a contract with us:
- The Project Owner must establish a joint collaboration agreement with all partners and a mandate for the board.
- A board must be appointed before the start of the centre. It must consist of representatives from the Project Owner and the partners.
- Grant recipients in research organisations and the public sector (Project Owners and partners) must have action plans for gender equality (GEPs) available on their websites. The requirement does not apply to the private sector, interest groups 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 application. Here you will find more information about requirements for data management plans in projects that receive funding from us.
Reporting and disbursement of funding
Funding from the Research Council is paid in arrears on the basis of an EHF invoice sent from the Project Owner to the Research Council. You will only be reimbursed for actual costs that have been entered in the project partners' accounts.
For information about reporting etc., see the document Requirements and guidelines for research centres – Research Institution-based Strategic Project.
Underway assessment
Based on an assessment of the centre during the project period, the Research Council may stipulate new conditions in the contract for the centre's activities during the last three years of the project period. The factors that will be particularly emphasised in the assessment are set out in the list of key success criteria for a centre for Norwegian as an academic language (in Norwegian only).
The underway assessment will also assess how the centre will contribute to achieving the thematic objectives and priorities set out in the call, and how any conditions for the funding have been followed up. The underway assessment will in particular assess the results achieved by the centre in relation to the original project description. The underway assessment will also provide an assessment of the plans for the centre's activities during the last three years. The centre will be given the opportunity to comment on the underway assessment.
Relevant thematic areas for this call
Humanities and social sciences
Practical information
Requirements for this application type
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 mandatory 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 Norwegian.
- All attachments must be in PDF format.
Mandatory attachments
- Project description, up to 20 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.
- CVs for up to five of the most important people (e.g. work package managers) in the project. Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page.
Applications that do not meet the requirements above will be rejected.
Optional attachments
- CVs of other key participants in the project.
- A brief description of competence and/or proposals of up to five referees who are presumed to be impartial to process the application. The referees' name, title, e-mail address and institutional affiliation must be entered. We are under no obligation to use these suggestions.
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 include documents and websites linked to in the application, or attachments other than those specified above, in the assessment of the application. Be careful to upload the correct attachment type, as there are no technical restrictions on what kind of templates you can upload in the application form.
Assessment criteria
Applications will be assessed in light of the purpose of the call and the following criteria:
Excellence
• Scientific creativity and originality.
• The extent to which hypotheses and research questions are innovative and courageous.
• The extent to which the centre has the potential to generate new knowledge that advances the research front, including significant development/renewal of theories, methods, experiments or empirical knowledge.
The quality of the centre's R&D activities
• The quality of research questions, hypotheses and the centre's objectives, and the extent to which they are clearly described.
• The extent to which the theoretical approach, research design and choice of methods are credible and appropriate, and interdisciplinary perspectives are sufficiently considered.
• The extent to which research conducted at the centre takes sufficient consideration of social responsibility, ethical issues and gender dimensions.
• The extent to which the centre satisfactorily addresses users/stakeholders’ knowledge.
Impact
• The extent to which the centre’s planned results can contribute to addressing important scientific challenges, both now and going forward.
• The extent to which the centre’s planned results can address important challenges in the sector(s), both now and going forward.
• The extent to which competence building and the centre's planned results will form the basis for value creation in the Norwegian business and/or public sector.
• The extent to which the centre’s planned results are relevant to the UN Sustainable Development Goals or have the potential to address other important societal challenges, both now and going forward.
• The extent to which the potential impacts are clearly formulated and credible.
Communication and utilisation
• The extent to which the appropriate open science practices are implemented as an integral part of the proposed project to ensure open sharing and wide distribution of research outputs.
• The quality and scope of communication and involvement activities targeting relevant stakeholders/users.
• The extent to which partners are involved in the work of utilising the centre's results.
Implementation
• The extent to which the project manager (centre director) has relevant expertise and experience and is qualified to lead an initiative of this scale.
• The extent to which the project participants complement one another, and the project group has the necessary expertise to effectively implement the centre initiative.
The quality of the centre’s organisation and management
• The extent to which organising the research activities as a centre rather than separate projects gives added value.
• The extent to which the centre will be efficiently organised, including whether the resources allocated to the different work packages are sufficient and in accordance with the centre’s objectives and deliveries.
• The extent to which the centre's tasks are distributed in a way that ensures all project participants have a clear role and sufficient resources to fulfil that role.
• The extent to which the management and governance of the centre are expediently organised, including risk and innovation management.
• The extent to which the partners contribute to the management and implementation of the centre.
The quality and extent of international cooperation
• The extent to which the scope and quality of international collaborative activities are in keeping with the centre's objectives.
Gender balance in the centre’s project group
• If the gender balance in the centre's management team (centre manager and research managers) is poor, the extent to which there is an expedient plan in place for the centre to support the development of researcher talents of the under-represented gender to qualify for senior-level positions.
Relevance to the call for proposals
Administrative procedures
The applications will be assessed by an international referee panel.
The panel will assess each application in accordance with the assessment criteria and in light of the requirements and objectives set out in the call.
The applicant will be sent the panel's preliminary assessment and grades. The applicant will then have the opportunity to clarify any professional misunderstandings in the panel assessment. This will tentatively take place in November/December 2024. These comments will then be sent back to the panel, which can choose to take the comments into account when making their final assessment.
The panel can advise on adjustments to the cost limits of the applications, which may be particularly relevant if two centres are to be funded.
After the panel assessment has been completed, the administration will assess the application's relevance to the call, and then write a recommendation to the portfolio board. The Portfolio Board for Ground-breaking Research will make the funding decision. The portfolio board bases its decision on the panel's assessment and the assessment of relevance. The portfolio board will have access to the applications with attachments, the text of the call, the panel's assessments and recommendations, the relevance assessment and the applicants' comments.
If the number of applications and/or the quality of the applications is too low, less than the available framework of NOK 120 million may be allocated.
You can expect an answer to the application in March 2025.
See also: How we process applications.
The call may be subject to changes in the event of changes in the ministries' financial or technical guidelines for the allocation.