Centre for Clinical Treatment Research

• Only applicants who have submitted a mandatory project outline by the deadline of 6 January 2021 are eligible to apply. Applications that are not based on such a project outline will be rejected.
• Approved Norwegian research organisations in binding cooperation with relevant actors and with access to patients may apply.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner
The research organisation listed as the Project Owner in the application form must have authorised the submission of the grant application to the Research Council. The application must be aligned with the Project Owner’s strategies.

Requirements relating to the project manager
You must have an approved doctorate. A referee panel will assess the project manager’s professional expertise and suitability to carry out the project. Experience of managing large, complex projects must be documented.

Requirements relating to partners

• The center's research shall be carried out by one or more research organizations in actual collaboration with relevant actors outside the research sector, e.g. within business, public enterprises or voluntary organizations.
• The grant application must describe how the project incorporates the objectives of all the partners.
• All partners must actively contribute to planning and following up the project (or research) and disseminating and utilization of the centre’s results.
• The centre may have foreign partners, and it must be documented how these will contribute to reaching the centre’s goals.

Scope of funding

• You can apply for a maximum of NOK 160 million distributed over an eight-year period, distributed with a maximum of NOK 100 million in the first 5 years and a maximum of NOK 60 million in the last 3 years. The funding for the last three years will be decided on the basis of the outcome of a mid-term evaluation of the centre.
• The center can apply to the Research Council for NOK 12-20 million per year.
• The Research Council can cover up to 50 per cent of the centre’s costs. Overall, the Project Owner and partners must cover at least 50 per cent of the centre’s total costs. Participants' own contributions to financing the centre can be given as cash contributions, working hours for clinical and/or research staff managed by the center, access to the use of necessary infrastructure and treatment facilities and any other secure long-term financing at the time of application. Other project support from the Research Council can not be used as self-funding.
• You can apply for funding to cover the actual costs necessary to carry out the project. Read more about what to enter in the project budget on the Research Council’s website.
• Stays abroad for doctoral and post-doctoral fellows must be covered within the framework of the project. FKBs will therefore not be covered by the Research Council’s call for Funding for Research Stays Abroad for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellows.

Conditions for funding
State aid will not be granted through this application type. The project is to be implemented by means of effective collaboration as defined in the state aid rules:

‘Collaboration between at least two independent parties to exchange knowledge or technology, or to achieve a common objective based on the division of labour where the parties jointly define the scope of the collaborative project, contribute to its implementation and share its risks, as well as its results. One or several parties may bear the full costs of the project and thus relieve other parties of its financial risks. Contract research and provision of research services are not considered forms of collaboration.’

Funding awarded to a research organisation is only to go to the organisation’s non-economic activity. It does not therefore constitute state aid. The Research Council requires a clear separation of accounts for the organisation’s economic and non-economic activities.

Undertakings may not receive funding to cover project costs.

Ownership of project results must be regulated to ensure that undertakings participating in the centre do not receive indirect state aid from participating research partners. The regulation of ownership must therefore be in compliance with paragraph 28 of the EFTA Surveillance Authority’s guidelines for state aid for research and development and innovation. This means that ownership of IPR from the project must be allocated to the different project partners in a way that satisfactorily reflects their work packages, contributions and respective interests

Medical and health-related studies involving human participants
For medical and health-related studies involving human participants, the Research Council stipulates special requirements and guidelines for prospective registration of studies and disclosure of results.

The Project Owner (research organisation) is responsible for selecting which archiving solution(s) to use for storing research data generated during the project. The Project Owner must specify the planned solution(s) in connection with the revised grant proposal.

Applications must be created and submitted via My RCN Web. You may revise and resubmit your grant application form multiple times up to the application submission deadline. We recommend that you submit your application as soon as you have filled in the application form and included all mandatory attachments. After the deadline, it is the most recently submitted version of the grant application that will be processed.

• The application and all attachments must be submitted in English.
• All mandatory attachments must be included.
• All attachments must be uploaded in PDF format.
• Requirements relating to the Project Owner (research organisation) must be satisfied.
• Requirements relating to the partners must be satisfied.

Mandatory attachments

• Project description of up to 20 pages in length. The project description must use the designated template, which is available for download at the end of the call.
• CV of the project manager (centre director) and other key personnel/work package managers in the project of up to four pages each, using the designated template at the end of the call. 
• Letter of intent from the Project Owner. A letter of intent from the management of the Project Owner’s organisation must be attached (1–2 pages in English), stating that it will accept the obligations that follow from a contract with the Research Council. The letter must also describe what part the centre will play in the host institution’s scientific strategy.
• Letter of intent from all registered partners. (1–2 pages in English). The letters from each of the partners must include the following:
  • 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 give reasons for their interest in participating in the centre. How will the centre’s activities benefit the partner and create opportunities that would not otherwise arise without the centre?
  • The partner must summarise their contribution to the centre in the form of knowledge, expertise and, if relevant, funding, facilities and own efforts during the centre's lifetime.

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

Optional attachment
Proposals for up to five referees who are considered qualified to assess the application. The expert’s name, title, email and address must be stated. We are not obliged to use the experts proposed by the applicant. 

We will not assess documents and websites linked to in the application, or other attachments than those specified above. There is no technical validation of the content of uploaded attachments, so please ensure that you upload the correct file for the selected type of attachment.

Applications submitted for this call will be assessed on the basis of the following criteria: 

That is to which extent the application is in line with the primary purpose of a Research Center for Clinical Treatment and responds to the purpose and guidelines of the call as described in chapter 4.1 in "Information for applicants".

After receiving the applications, the Research Council will carry out a preliminary administrative review to check that all formal requirements have been satisfied. Applications that do not meet the formal requirements will be rejected.

Each application will be assessed by a panel comprising at least three international experts from outside Norway suited to the application’s thematic area. The referee panel will assess the four criteria Excellence, Impact, Implementation and Relevance and will assign a consensus-based mark for each of these criteria. This assessment will be sent to the applicant who will be given the opportunity to comment on the assessment. The expert panel will be sent the applicant's comments and will have the opportunity to revise the assessment based on the applicant's feedback.

Applications with an average grade of 5.0 and higher will be considered by a senior committee consisting of international scientific experts and user representatives. The applicant, by the proposed center manager, must be prepared to be summoned for an interview in connection with the committee's meeting. The committee will rank the applications based on the expert panels' assessment and their own assessment where the interviews are central. The Research Council will support the committee's work with information on the center scheme, national conditions and assessments related to the relevant center's national contribution.

The portfolio board for health will make the decision on allocation. It is not desirable to start several centers that have a large overlap in professional facilities and activity.

The Research Council will, under otherwise equal conditions, prioritize applications with female center managers and centers with good women's representation in leading positions.