Maritime Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence

Only approved Norwegian research organisations are eligible to apply. See the list of approved research organisations.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner

• The Project Owner must be an approved research organisation.
• The research organisation listed as the Project Owner in the application form must have approved the submission of the application.
• The Project Owner submits the application on behalf of all the partners.

Requirements relating to the project manager

• The project manager (centre manager) must document relevant experience from managing large and complex projects with many partners.
• The project manager must be employed by the Project Owner or by one of the partners.

Requirements for collaboration and roles in the project

• The research in the centre will be carried out by research organisations in effective collaboration with relevant stakeholders in the public sector, the business sector and/or other private organisations. See a more detailed description of effective cooperation in the document Article 25 of the General Block Exemption Regulation.
• The centre must have partners from several Norwegian research organisations.
• The centre must have several Norwegian partners that are not research organisations. These are also referred to as user partners and will contribute with expertise and experience, and ensure that the project and its objectives address real challenges faced by maritime stakeholders. A minimum of 5 of these user partners must be companies from the maritime industry.
• The centre may also have international user partners. It must be described how any international user partners will contribute to achieving the centre's goals. Foreign organisations must be assessed against the Export Control Regulations.
• The centre may have binding collaboration with foreign research communities. The collaboration can help to strengthen expertise in Norway and increase international visibility, for example in the form of 20 per cent positions in Norway, guest researchers and other collaborative activities.
• The centre may have associated subcontractors if these are not in a relationship of dependence on the Project Owner or any of the other partners, for example through a group relationship. They must operate at arm's length from these.
• The Project Owner and partners must also be independent of each other. This means that one cannot have a controlling influence over the other. This applies both between the Project Owner and the partner, and between all the partners.
• One and the same actor cannot have several roles in the centre, for example as a partner and subcontractor.

You can apply for funding to cover the actual costs necessary to carry out the project. The Project Owner must obtain information on costs from the centre's partners. These costs must be entered in the cost plan under the cost type to which they belong.

The following cost types should be used:

• Payroll and indirect expenses, (including research fellowship positions). For doctoral fellowships, support is limited to three full-time equivalents, and for postdoctoral fellowships, support may be awarded for three to four years.
• Equipment, which includes operating and depreciation costs for scientific equipment and research infrastructure necessary to carry out the project
• Other operating expenses, which are costs for other activities that are necessary to carry out the project. Purchases from subcontractors must be specified.

Both the research organisations and the user partners must work in effective collaboration and enter their costs under personnel and indirect costs, equipment or other operating costs. The item Procurement of R&D services in the application form should therefore not be used.

The Research Council does not provide funding for major equipment investments or infrastructures under this call.

Stays abroad for research fellows at the centre and stays for visiting researchers in Norway must be covered within the framework of the project.

Scope of funding

The state aid rules allow the Research Council to provide funding to partners that are registered in the Norwegian Register of Business Enterprises and have economic activity in Norway. How much can be awarded depends on the size of the enterprise and the type of research that is carried out. The following applies to this call:

• Companies that are considered to be enterprises within the meaning of state aid law may receive support for their costs in the centre. Funding may be used to cover costs provided for in Article 25 of the GBER, and for costs that can only be categorised as basic research (GF) or industrial research (IF). Funding is not given to experimental development (EU).
• Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs according to the EU definition) can receive support of up to 50 per cent of their costs.
• Large companies can receive support of up to 30 percent of their costs.
• Public organisations can apply for up to 50 per cent support. If a public sector organisation is to be regarded as an undertaking for the purposes of state aid, the conditions set out in the call for proposals for support for SMEs and large enterprises apply.

The Research Council may provide funding to cover the costs of foreign research organisations (see Recording of personnel costs and indirect costs in the higher education sector). We cannot cover costs with other foreign partners. These costs must therefore be kept out of the budget tables. However, you must mention the activities they will carry out, as well as their costs, in the project description (see section 3.2).

You can find detailed and important information about on the website.

Prerequisites for the award of funding

Support to the research organisations must go to their non-economic activity in the form of independent research carried out in actual collaboration with others. This aid therefore does not constitute state aid. The Research Council assumes that the necessary accounting separation between the organisations' economic and non-economic activities is in place.

User partners who do not have their costs covered or only part of their costs must contribute with their own financing.  The Project Owner's organisation and other research organisations may also provide their own funding, but this is not a requirement.

The call for proposals has been notified as an aid scheme to the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) and has the reference: GBER XX/2024/R&D&I (number coming soon). If an undertaking is to be reimbursed for part of its project costs as a partner in the project, this must be done in accordance with Article 25 of the General Block Exemption Regulation (Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014). In addition, the general conditions in Chapter I of the Regulation must be met. The scheme shall be practised in accordance with the EEA Agreement's state aid rules. In the event of any conflict between the announcement and the state aid rules, the latter shall take precedence. For the same reason, the call for proposals may also be adjusted.

• Aid may not be granted to undertakings that have not complied with the requirements for repayment following a previous decision by the ESA/EU Commission declaring the aid illegal and incompatible with the internal market. Nor may aid be granted to undertakings in difficulty within the meaning of EEA law.
• We assume that the research in the centre is carried out in actual collaboration as defined in our General Terms and Conditions for R&D Projects.
• There is a requirement for an annual project accounting report documenting accrued project costs and their financing. The Research Council's prerequisites for awarding and disbursing funding are set out in the General Terms and Conditions for R&D Projects.

If the project is approved, the following must be in place when you revise the application:

• The Project Owner must establish a collaboration agreement(s) with all partners in the centre. The collaboration agreement is intended to regulate mutual rights and obligations and ensure the integrity and independence of research. The collaboration agreement must also ensure that no collaborating undertaking receives indirect funding from the research organisation that is the Project Owner or from the collaborating research organisation. The cooperation agreement must therefore contain conditions that ensure that ESA's guidelines on state aid for R&D&I, section 29,  are complied with.  
• From 2022, research organisations that receive grants 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, where you will find more information about the requirements for data management plans in projects that receive funding from us.
• The Project Owner decides which archiving solution(s) will be used for storing research data that emerges from the project.
• For medical and health studies involving humans, the Research Council sets special requirements and guidelines for prospective registration of studies and publication of results.

We will pay the support in arrears, and you will only be reimbursed for actual costs that have been entered in the institution's accounts. All reporting must be done electronically.

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 and all attachments must be written in English.
• All attachments must be in PDF format.
• The project must have a start date between 01.10.2025 and 01.02.2026.

Mandatory attachments

• Project description of a maximum of 20 pages. Use the template that you can find at the bottom of the call.
• CV for project manager. Use the standard template that you can find at the bottom of the call.
• CVs for up to ten of the most important people (e.g. work package leaders) in the project. Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page.
• Letters of intent from all the partners. See sample letter of intent on our guidance page.
• Description of relevance of a maximum of one page. The template can be found at the bottom of the call. When describing the relevance of the application, we recommend that you read the "Relevant thematic areas for this call" carefully. Uploaded as attachment type "Other".

Optional attachment

• Feel free to attach an attachment with proposals for up to three professionals (or academic communities) who you believe have the competence to assess the application, or a brief description of the competence that you believe will be suitable for assessing it. We are under no obligation to use these suggestions.

All requirements in the call must be met. Applications that do not meet the design requirements or requirements relating to the Project Owner and requirements relating to collaboration and roles in the project will be rejected.

We will not consider attachments other than those specified above, or documents and websites linked to in 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.

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

Once the applications have been received, the Research Council will first check that the formal requirements for the design of the application have been met. Applications that do not meet these requirements will be rejected.

In addition, applications that do not satisfy the thematic priorities set out in the call will be rejected. Decisions on this are made by the portfolio board for Energy and Transport.

Applications that meet the formal requirements will be assessed by a panel of referees who reach a consensus assessment of each of the three criteria: "Research quality", "Impacts and impacts" and "Implementation".

If the referee panel awards a mark of 5 or higher for all three criteria, the administration will consider the criterion "Relevance to the call".  The results of the assessment of the four criteria mentioned above will be summarised in an overall mark as an overall expression of the quality of the application, and applications that do not receive a mark of 5 or higher on all three criteria in the referee panel's assessment will be rejected.

The portfolio board for Energy and Transport also bases its decision on the award on an overall assessment.  This takes into account the marks awarded in the assessment of the applications and the following set of priorities:

• The purpose of the centre.
• The application covers both of the two tracks – technology and innovation – in such a way that the effort within each of the tracks is significant.
• Any overlap with already approved AI centres from the ordinary call for proposals of AI centres.

The portfolio board plans to hold a decision meeting in September 2025. We will publish the results of the application processing after the meeting.

On the Research Council's website, you can read more about how we process applications: How we process applications.