Research Centres for Artificial Intelligence (AI Centres)

Only approved Norwegian research organisations are eligible to apply. See the list of approved research organisations and definition of the public sector.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner 

• The Project Owner organisation 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 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 actors in the public sector, non-governmental organisations, the industrial sector and/or other private organisations. See further description of effective cooperation in the document Article 25 of the Block Exemption Regulation.  
• The centre will have partners from several Norwegian research organisations. The research organisations must cover several disciplines (level 1). At least two of these disciplines must be Technology and Social Sciences/Humanities. 
• The centre will have several Norwegian partners that are not research organisations. These are also referred to as user partners and will contribute expertise and experience and ensure that the project and its objectives address real challenges in society. 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. 
• The centre must have a binding collaboration with at least one foreign research environment. The collaboration will contribute to strengthening expertise in Norway and increasing 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. Read more about Partners and suppliers in innovation projects 
• 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 costs, (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 costs, 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: 

• Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs according to the EU definition) that are considered enterprises within the meaning of state aid law can receive support of up to 50 per cent of 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). 
• Large companies cannot receive support and must cover all their own costs in the centre. 
• Public organisations can apply for up to 100 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 Calculating payroll and indirect expenses for the university and university college 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 what the budget should contain 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, other research organisations and public agencies that participate as partners 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. 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 the allocation and disbursement of 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 Gender Equality Action Plans (GEPs) available on its website. 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 1 September 2025 and 1 December 2025. 

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 of a maximum of 4 pages. Use the standard template that you can find at the bottom of the call. 
• CVs for up to 15 of the most important people (e.g. work package managers) in the project of a maximum of 4 pages. 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 (in Norwegian)  

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

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. 

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 and that the application is based on a submitted outline. Applications that do not meet these requirements will be rejected. 

If the requirements are met, the application will be processed. A panel of experts assesses and arrives at a consensus assessment of each of the three criteria "research quality", "impacts and effects" and "implementation". 

If the referee panel awards a mark of 5 or higher for the three criteria, the administration will assess the criterion "Relevance to the call".  The results of the assessment of the four criteria mentioned above are summarised in an overall mark as an overall expression of the quality of the application. 

Based on the overall mark and an initial portfolio assessment, up to 20 applications with an overall mark higher than or equal to 5 will be invited to an interview where the referee panel and academic advisers from the Research Council will participate. One result of the interview may be that one or more grades are adjusted before the main grade is finally set. Applications that are not invited for an interview will be rejected. 

Applications that have achieved an overall mark of 6 or 7 will be assessed against a set of portfolio criteria to ensure that the portfolio of 4-6 centres covers the three main tracks: impacts, technology and innovation, as well as the guidelines set out by the Research Council's Board and the Portfolio Board for Enabling Technologies. 

Portfolio criteria 

• Overall, the AI centres will cover the three tracks – societal impacts, technology and innovation – in such a way that the efforts within each of the tracks are significant. 
• Overall, the AI centres will provide a good breadth of AI and complement each other in terms of research topics and areas of application. 
• Overall, the AI centres will complement and develop the Research Council's portfolio of research centres with a high level of AI research effort. 
• Overall, the AI centres will contribute to supplementary funding of national AI research. This can be in the form of own contributions, cash contributions and concrete plans for additional funding. The portfolio board will take into account that the degree and type of supplementary funding for each centre will vary depending on the centre's focus and consortium. 

The portfolio board plans to hold a decision meeting on 10 June 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 the Research Council processes applications: How we process applications.