Research and Innovation for Major Challenges in the Public Sector

Norwegian public enterprises and approved Norwegian research organisations are eligible to apply. 

See the Research Council's definition of the public sector and the list of approved research organisations.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner 

Applications where the public sector is listed as the Project Owner must be approved by senior administrative management. 

Applications for which the research organisation is listed as the Project Owner must be approved by the administrative management. 

The Project Owner submits the application on behalf of all partners, and the partners must approve the application before submission. 

One and the same actor cannot have several roles in the project. 

Requirements relating to the project manager 

The project manager's professional competence and suitability to carry out the project will be assessed by referees. There are no formal requirements for the project manager's qualifications. 

The Project Manager must be employed by the Project Owner or by one of the partners. 

A project manager may be the project manager for a maximum of one application under this call. 

Requirements relating to partners 

The project must be carried out in effective collaboration between at least one public sector body and at least one approved Norwegian research organisation. 

If the Project Owner submitting the application is a public body, collaboration with at least one approved Norwegian research organisation is required. 

If the Project Owner is an approved Norwegian research organisation, collaboration with at least one public sector body is required. 

The project must have a steering group in which the partners are represented. 

The application must be strategically supported by all partners. This must be confirmed in the letters of intent, and the letters of intent must provide a description of what each partner will contribute to the project. All partners must have a part of the project's budget. 

Requirement for effective cooperation 

The project must be carried out in effective cooperation between all the partners 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." 

Note that the Project Owner and partners must be independent of each other, which means that one cannot have a controlling influence over the other. This follows from the definition of partner in our general terms and conditions for R&D projects, compared with the definition of actual collaboration. The same applies to the partners.  

By partners, we mean actors with different roles and interests and who should interact to solve societal challenges. The partners' roles must be explained in letters of intent. The application must be strategically supported by all partners. The project must have a steering group in which the partners and relevant users/end users are represented, and all partners must actively contribute to the planning and follow-up of the project. Everyone must also contribute to spreading results and ensuring that new knowledge and innovation are put to use. 

It is a requirement that a minimum of 30 per cent of the project's costs are spent on public sector activities, and correspondingly, that a minimum of 30 per cent is spent on research organisations. 

When state enterprises are involved in the project, they must contribute with 20 percent self-financing of their share of the project. 

Fellows 

In these projects, you will not recruit PhD positions. However, the project should include collaboration with, for example, relevant Public Sector or Industrial PhD schemes, or research schools with academic relevance to the public sector. 

Sole proprietorships can be partners 

Sole proprietorships can be partners, but we only provide support to cover personnel and indirect costs for employees in the company. Both salary costs and other costs incurred by the sole proprietorship in connection with participation in a project must be disclosed in the enterprise's accounts. 

Subcontractors 

Subcontractors are not project partners, and you do not need to specify these in the application or in agreement documents. Subcontractors may not be given rights to project results, unless otherwise specifically agreed. 

In principle, the Project Owner and the partners are free to engage and, if necessary, change subcontractors within the framework of the contract. Organisations that are subject to the regulations for public procurement must in the usual way carry out the selection of subcontractors in line with these regulations. 

Foreign partners 

Foreign research organisations can participate as partners in the project and receive funding. 

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. You must enter these costs in the cost plan under the cost type they belong to. 

We require that you break down the project budget into the following cost types in your application: 

• payroll and indirect expenses, which are costs incurred by the Project Owner and partners in the public sector, research organisations and the Norwegian business sector. 
• other operating expenses, 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 item Procurement of R&D services must not be used.    

Please read carefully our general terms and conditions for R&D projects.  

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

See Calculating payroll and indirect expenses for the university and university college sector. 

Scope of support 

Funding of NOK 20-25 million per project is available under this call. When state enterprises are involved in the project, they must contribute with 20 percent self-financing of their share of the project.

Applications for less than 20 million NOK will be rejected.

Funding from the Research Council is intended to cover research- and research-based innovation activities during the project period. 

Prerequisites for the award of funding 

Aid to organisations engaged in non-economic activity does not constitute state aid. For organisations that engage in both economic and non-economic activity, the Research Council assumes that the necessary accounting separation is in place. 

Aid to "undertakings" constitutes state aid. In this context, an undertaking means any actor that engages in economic activity by offering goods and/or services in a market. Aid to undertakings is granted on the basis of Article 25 of the General Block Exemption Regulation (Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014). Read more about state aid.

For enterprises that are enterprises within the meaning of state aid law, the degree of support for the enterprise's project costs will depend on the size and type of R&D activities of the enterprise. The aid intensity may thus vary from 25 to 80 per cent; Article 25: Support for research and development projects. In the application form's progress plan, you must categorise the R&D activities by selecting industrial research and/or experimental development from the drop-down menu.    

We do not provide support for activities of an operational nature and measures to exploit the R&D results, such as the protection of intangible activities. 

Aid may not be granted to undertakings that have not fulfilled the requirements for repayment pursuant to a previous ESA/EU Commission decision 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. 

The scheme is practised in line with the EEA Agreement's state aid rules. Terms and concepts shall be interpreted in accordance with the corresponding terms and concepts in the 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. 

If you receive state aid from us that is equivalent to EUR 100,000 or more, we will make it known in the Register of State Aid. 

The companies participating in the project must submit a self-declaration confirming that they are eligible to receive state aid. 

The call for proposals has been notified as an aid scheme to the EFTA Survelliance Authority (ESA) and has reference: xxxxxxx 

Ethics 

The Research Council requires a high standard of research ethics in the projects we fund, and ethics is included in the assessment by the peers. The description of ethics can be written under section 2.2.2 of the template - R&D challenges, design and scientific methods. The description of ethics is first and foremost an assurance to the peers that there is a plan in place to deal with the most important ethical dilemmas in the project. 

User participation 

There is a requirement for the participation of users/end users, and the application must explain how they are involved in all phases of the project. 

We recommend these guides: 

• Supervisor Citizen involvement in research (in Norwegian) 
• Pro ethics framework 

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

• The Research Council's conditions for allocations can be found in our general terms and conditions for R&D projects on the information page What the contract involves.  
• The Project Owner must establish a collaboration agreement with all the partners in the project. This Agreement shall govern mutual rights and obligations. It must also ensure that no collaborating undertaking receives indirect support from the Project Owner or partners. This means that it must contain conditions that ensure compliance with Section 29 of ESA's guidelines on state aid for R&D&I.
• The project manager and the Project Owner must have assessed and handled the consideration of research security in the project. Research security refers to risks associated with unwanted transfer of knowledge and technology, impact on research and innovation, or breaches of research ethics/integrity where knowledge and technology are used to undermine key societal values.  
• 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 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.   
• For medical and health studies involving humans, the Research Council sets special requirements and guidelines for prospective registration of studies and publication of results.   
• There is a requirement for an annual project accounting report documenting accrued project costs and their financing. The Research Council's prerequisites for allocating and disbursing funding are set out in the General Terms and Conditions for R&D Projects.  

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 must meet the purpose, guidelines and formal requirements of the call. 
• Requirements relating to the Project Owner, organisation and project manager must be met. 
• Requirements for partners must be met. 
• Requirements for effective cooperation must be met. 
• The application and all attachments must be written in Norwegian or English.
• All attachments must be in PDF format. 

Mandatory attachments 

• Project description. Use the template at the bottom of the page. 
• Description of relevance of a maximum of one page. Uploaded as attachment type "Other". 
• CV for project manager and central project participants. Use the template at the bottom of the page. 
• Letters of intent from all the partners. Use the template at the bottom of the page. 
• Partner information (for companies/companies only). Use the template at the bottom of the page. Please note that in applications where companies/companies are not included as partners, you must upload an empty template to this field (p. 6 Appendix Partner information* in the application form). 

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

Optional attachments 

• CVs of other key participants in the project. 
• Proposals for up to three referees 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:

Once we have received the applications, we will first carry out a preliminary assessment to check whether the applications meet the purpose, guidelines and formal requirements of the call. Applications that do not satisfy the topic, guidelines and formal requirements of the call will be rejected. 

After the preliminary assessment, applications that meet the formal requirements will be allocated to panels consisting of referees/referees with relevant expertise, and the applications will be processed by the panels in accordance with standard procedures and criteria. 

For each application, we check that the referees/referees are impartial and have sufficient expertise in the application's thematic area. The panel assesses the criteria "Research and innovation", "Impacts and effects" and "Implementation". A consensus grade is given for each of these criteria. 

The panel's assessment is of crucial importance for whether the project can be awarded funding. 

After panel consideration, applications that exceed a certain threshold value will be assessed for the criterion "Relevance to the call" by Research Council case officers. The result of the assessment of the four above-mentioned criteria is summarised in an "overall mark" as an overall expression of the quality of the application. 

The administration will submit a proposal for a recommendation to the Research Council's Innovation Portfolio Board on which applications should be awarded and rejected, based on the average of the four criteria research and innovation, impact and impact, implementation and relevance, and safeguarding the objective of funding a wide range of challenge areas. Applications with an average mark from a peer panel below 5.0 and applications with a partial mark equal to 4.0 or lower will be rejected en bloc. 

The Portfolio Board for Innovation will place emphasis on achieving a balanced portfolio of projects. The assessments will be based on budget frameworks, the text of the announcement and the letter of allocation. 

Priorities 

In this call, priority will be given to projects that deal with sustainable system innovation, efficiency and personnel saving measures, the use of public sector data and projects with high implementation and/or scaling potential. The portfolio of projects awarded must cover this as a whole. 

In the prioritisation between projects eligible for support, we will emphasise the following: 

• Inclusion of a sufficient number of actors, who together cover all aspects of the societal challenge(s) addressed by the project 
• Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach 
• International cooperation 

When allocating funding for this call, we will take into account that the projects we fund cover the breadth of the call as well as possible. 

See also: How we process applications.   

We expect to publish which applications will receive funding in December 2025.