Transport 2050 - Centres for Transport Research

Approved Norwegian research organisations can apply in effective collaboration with partners from other research organisations, the business sector and the public sector. 

See the list of approved research organisations and definition of the public sector.   

Public actors and any private companies must participate as partners, referred to as user partners. 

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

Requirements relating to partners 

• The research in the centre will be carried out by research organisations in effective collaboration with relevant actors in the public sector and Norwegian business and industry. See a more detailed description of collaboration and roles in the document Requirements and guidelines for industrial or community-oriented research centres. 
• The application must be strategically supported by all partners. 
• The centre must have three or more partners that are not research organisations, of which at least one must be a public transport company. These are referred to as user partners. 
• The centre may also have foreign user partners. It must be documented how any foreign user partners will contribute to achieving the centre's goals.  Foreign actors must be assessed against the Export Control Act. 
• All user partners must participate actively in research and must have a significant ability to use research results in the development of their activities. 
• All partners must actively contribute to the planning, follow-up and dissemination of results from the centre and to ensure that new knowledge is used. 
• The centre will have a board where the majority of the members and the chairman of the board come from the user partners. 

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 partners in the project. These costs must be entered in the cost plan under the cost type to which they belong. 

We do not award state aid under this call. 

You can receive support for the following costs: 

• payroll and indirect expenses (including research fellowship positions) at the research organisations and public actors participating in the centre. Support will be used to cover the actual activities necessary to carry out the activity. For doctoral scholarships, the support is limited to three full-time equivalents. For postdoctoral fellowships, the support is limited to four 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 centre's allocation for a period of up to three years.  
• other operating costs, which are costs for other activities that are necessary to carry out the project's R&D activities. Any purchases from subcontractors must be entered here. All costs entered as "other operating expenses" must be specified in the application.  
• equipment, which includes operating and depreciation costs for scientific equipment necessary to carry out the project  

The cost type Procurement of R&D services must not be used.  

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

Stays abroad for doctoral and post-doctoral research fellows must be covered within the framework of the centre's support. The research centre is therefore not covered by the Research Council's special scheme for support for stays abroad for doctoral and post-doctoral research fellows. 

Scope of support 

Funding is available for up to NOK 70.4 million for centre 1 and NOK 60.8 million for centres 2 and 3 under this call. There is no requirement for self-funding from the research organisations. The payments will follow the allocations from the Ministry, with a maximum annual limit of NOK 8.8 million for Centre 1 and NOK 7.6 million for Centres 2 and 3. 

An evaluation will be carried out midway through the project period to assess whether the centres comply with the mission statement for each individual centre and the main purpose of Transport 2050. Based on assessments 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 centres' activities may ultimately be discontinued after five years if the evaluation finds that the centres do not comply with the mission statement. 

Of the annual framework, up to 10-20% of the sum is reserved for specific assignments. See "About the announcement" for specifications of the various centres. 

The Ministry of Transport and the Research Council of Norway may participate as observers in the Board's meetings. 

Calculation of support 

User partners that are public actors can receive support. When the user partner is from the municipal sector, the maximum support from the Research Council is limited to 75% of the total approved project costs. For user partners from government agencies, the maximum support is limited to 50% of the total approved project costs. Private companies and public enterprises that carry out activities of an industrial or commercial nature can participate in the project, but cannot receive funding from us. 

Prerequisites for the award of funding 

Projects must start between 01.07.2025 and 01.10.2025, and you must apply for funding from the Research Council for 2025. The latest permitted project completion date is 30.09.2033. 

We do not award state aid under this call. We assume that the research is carried out in effective collaboration as defined in the state aid rules: 

"Cooperation between at least two independent parties to exchange knowledge or technology or to achieve a common goal on the basis of division of labour, where the parties jointly define the scope of the collaborative project, contribute to its implementation and share risks and results. One or more parties can bear all the costs of the project and thus exempt other parties from financial risk. Commissioned research and the provision of research services are not considered to be a form of collaboration." 

The following guidelines apply: 

• Support for a research organisation goes to the organisation's non-economic activity. It therefore does not constitute state aid. The Research Council assumes that the necessary accounting separation is in place. 
• Companies are not eligible to receive funding to cover project costs. Business actors and others who are to be regarded as enterprises in the sense of state aid law will thus not be reimbursed for any of their costs in connection with participation in the centre. 
• Rights to project results shall be regulated so that companies participating in the centre do not receive indirect funding from participating research partners. The regulation of the rights must therefore be in line with the ESA's guidelines on aid for research, development and innovation, point 29. This means that rights to IPR from the project must be allocated to the various partners in a way that fully reflects their work packages, contributions and respective interests. 

The Research Council's prerequisites for awards 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 an award from us: 

• 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.  
• 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 Project Owner organisation decides which archiving solution(s) will be used for storing research data that emerges from the project. This must be specified in the project's data management plan. 

We pay the support in arrears. For more information about funding, see the document "Requirements and guidelines for business or community-oriented centres" which you can find under "About the call". 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. 
• Mandatory attachments must be included. 
• The requirements relating to the Project Owner's research organisation must be met. 
• Requirements for partners must be met. 
• A maximum of ten CVs can be submitted. 

Mandatory attachments 

• Project description of max 20 pages plus 1 page with references. Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page. 
• CV for the project manager (centre director) and for the most important people/work package leaders in the project, each of a maximum of 4 pages. Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page. 
• Declaration of intent from the Project Owner. A letter of intent from the management of the Project Owner organisation (1-2 pages) stating that it will assume the obligations entailed by a contract with the Research Council must be attached. The declaration must also explain how the centre is included in the host institution's academic strategy. Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page. 
• Letter of intent from all registered partners (1-2 pages). Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page. The declarations of each partner shall have the following content: 
  • The partner must confirm their intention to participate actively as a partner in the centre and describe how this will be done in practice. 
  • The partner must justify their interest in participating in the centre. In what way will the centre's activities benefit the partner and create opportunities that would not be there without the centre? 
  • The partner must summarize its contribution to the centre in the form of knowledge, expertise and any funding, facilities and own efforts over the lifetime of the centre. 

Optional attachments 

• Proposals for up to five peers who can be assumed 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:

We will assess your application as it has been submitted. 

Once the applications have been received, the Research Council will first check that all formal requirements have been met. Applications that do not satisfy the formal requirements will be rejected. 

In addition, applications that are outside the thematic limitations set out in the call will be rejected. Decisions on this are made by the individual portfolio boards. 

Where the requirements are met, we will make the application, with all mandatory attachments, available in an online portal for experts who individually assess the criteria "research quality", "impact and effect" and "implementation". The referees will then meet in thematic panels where they will reach a consensus assessment of the application for each of the three criteria. 

If the referee panel assesses all criteria for a mark of 5 or higher, the application will be eligible for funding and the application will also be assessed on the basis of the criterion "Relevance to the call" by Research Council case officers. 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. 

Applications that have achieved an overall mark of 5, 6 or 7 will be assessed against a set of portfolio criteria to ensure that the portfolio of centres covers the three priority research topics, as well as the guidelines set out by the Research Council's Board and the Portfolio Board for Energy and Transport. 

The portfolio assessment takes into account: 

• that the three priority research topics for Transport 2050 are covered. We will not fund more than one centre per research topic. 
• the marks awarded in the assessment of the applications. 
• a good distribution of research institutions as Project Owners. 
• whether the planned research activities have a long-term and cross-sectoral focus rather than being limited to one mode of transport (air, sea, road or rail). 
• whether the planned research activities are relevant to the transport policy goals stated in the National Transport Plan (in Norwegian).  
• any changes in the ministries' financial or technical guidelines for the allocation. 
• whether any foreign partners are in line with the export control act. 

The portfolio board for energy and transport will provisionally have a decision meeting in June 2025. We will publish the results of the application processing after this meeting. 

See also: How we process applications.