Support for Research Schools to Follow Up National Subject Evaluations

Norwegian universities and university colleges with the right to award doctoral degrees can apply. In addition, the applicant must be an administrative unit that was evaluated in one of the four subject evaluations.

Requirements for the research school 

A national research school is a binding collaboration between Norwegian universities and university colleges, which can also enter into collaboration with research institutes, health trusts, foreign universities, the industrial sector and/or the public sector. 

In this call, collaboration between at least three Norwegian research organisations, including the Project Owner, is required. See the list of approved Norwegian research organisations.  

The research school must have: 

• a clear organisation with its own acceptance process for doctoral candidates 
• a structured academic programme for the graduate courses 
• a scientific and administrative management 
• a board that ensures representation from the partner institutions and doctoral candidates 

Requirements for participants and management: 

• The research school must include a minimum of 20 doctoral candidates at 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. 

In the project description (under the item Relevance to the call for proposals), you must describe how the research school addresses needs described in one of the national reports from the subject evaluations. You must also describe the expected results, impacts and effects in the short and long term and how these can be documented. 

Furthermore, 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 working life in general 
• academic 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 used 

The research school must 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 for which training elements 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 effects 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 gatherings with a view to the exchange of ideas and experiences. 

Requirements relating to the Project Owner 

The organisation responsible for hosting the research school is the organisation that is 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. The Project Owner must have participated in one of the four subject evaluations. 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 academic competence and suitability will be assessed by a panel. The project manager may only be the project manager for one application and must be employed by an administrative unit that was evaluated in one of the four subject evaluations. 

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 commitment to cooperation must be confirmed in collaboration agreements. 

The partners may be research organisations, health trusts, foreign universities, companies and/or from the public sector. We do not award state aid through this call. 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 to cover costs related to the administration of the research school's activities, which will typically be operating costs and personnel costs for administrative follow-up. 

• Training activities 
• Professional development work 
• Networking and interaction activities 
• Management and administrative facilitation 

In the cost plan in the application form, you can only use the items Payroll and indirect expenses and Other operating expenses. The items Procurement of R&D services and Equipment cannot be used. 

You cannot apply for support to cover doctoral scholarships, operating expenses for the implementation of doctoral projects, personnel and indirect expenses 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 in the project budget on our website.  

Scope of funding 

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

Prerequisites for funding 

The projects must start between 01.12.2025 and 01.06.2026. The latest permitted project completion date is 31.05.2034. 

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

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. 

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

• 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.  

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 English. 
• All attachments must be in PDF format. 

Mandatory attachments 

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

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

Optional attachments 

• CV for key participants in the project. 
• Proposals for up to three peers who are presumed to be impartial 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: 

Pre-assessment 

Applications that do not satisfy the formal requirements will be rejected. 

The Research Council may reject applications where the Project Owner or partner has materially breached its obligations in other projects funded by the Research Council in the two years prior to the submission of the application. 

The application may be rejected if the project manager has been appointed to the Joint Integrity Committee or the Investigation Committee in the last two years prior to the submission of the application. 

Panel assessment 

The applications are then assessed by referees with broad expertise, who later gather in a panel meeting and together agree on final marks for the assessment criteria and prepare a unified written assessment for each application they assess. An application is only processed in one panel. 

Threshold 

If the average of the marks is lower than 5, the application will not be eligible for funding. If the application for one of the main criteria has received a mark of 3 or lower, it will also not be eligible for funding. 

Assessment of relevance 

The administration will carry out a relevance assessment based on how well the application addresses the needs described in the national reports from the four subject evaluations. 

Decision on funding 

The administration prepares a recommendation based on 

• the panels' assessments 
• the administration's relevance assessments 
• distribution of research schools by subjects and topics 

The portfolio board for Ground-breaking research then makes a decision regarding funding. 

Response to the application 

An answer to the application is expected in November 2025. 

See also: How we process applications.