Supplementary Funding for Ongoing Projects to Enhance Knowledge and Results Transfer from ICT Research to the Defence Sector

Only approved Norwegian research organisations that are Project Owners for an ongoing Researcher Project or collaborative project in the Research Council's ICT research portfolio are eligible to apply.

See the list of approved research organisations.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner

The Project Owner must be identical to the one listed in the contract for the ongoing project. The research organisation listed as the Project Owner in the application form must have approved the submission of the application.

If the application is a collaboration between several organisations, the Project Owner must submit the application on behalf of all partners.

Requirements relating to the project manager

The project manager must be identical to the person who is listed as the project manager for the ongoing project.

Requirements relating to partners

Partners in the reinforcement project should preferably have formal roles in the ongoing project from which the reinforcement project originates. We accept partners other than those who participate/have participated in the ongoing project when their participation provides added value to the reinforcement project. You must account for this added value in the application. Approved Norwegian research organisations and similar foreign organisations may participate as partners in the project and receive funding.

You can apply for funding for specific major measures and activities that are not already part of the ongoing project.

Activities covered can be:

• to bring in a new partner or resource into the project that represents the defence sector
• mobility in or out of the project for the transfer of knowledge and results between the project and representatives from the defence sector, for example by project participants visiting actors in the defence sector and/or employees in the defence sector visiting research partners
• extra efforts to disseminate or exploit results from the project that lead to the transfer of expertise and results to the defence sector and/or that realise synergies with other technology initiatives in the defence sector. The activities can be series of working meetings with relevant actors, dissemination activities such as the establishment of communication channels and networks, or other activities.
• new doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships for candidates who can get security clearance to a minimum of "Secret".

We recommend that any PhD candidates who are employed by a company or a public enterprise look into the possibilities of applying for an Industrial PhD Scheme – Doctoral Project in Industry or a Public Sector PhD Scheme – Doctoral Project in the Public Sector. 

• All activities must comply with the requirements for responsible research and innovation (see Responsible Research and Innovation in the Research Council of Norway (forskningsradet.no)). 

You can apply for funding to cover the actual costs necessary to carry out the project. The Project Owner must obtain information about 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 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 Norwegian trade and industry 
• other operating expenses, which are costs for other activities 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 cannot be used. 

If doctoral and postdoctoral research fellows are included in the project and there are specific plans for them to stay abroad, this may be included in the application. The Research Council also has a separate call for proposals for research stays abroad for doctoral and post-doctoral research fellows. Here, the project manager can apply for funding for research stays abroad for research fellows who are part of the project during the project period.

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

Scope of funding

Funding of up to NOK 4.5 million per project may be awarded under this call. We do not require own financing, but for the higher education sector, the Research Council expects some own financing of researcher time..

Prerequisites for awarding funding

The reinforcement project must generally start and end within the project period of the ongoing project. You can go beyond the end date of the ongoing project, but you must ensure that the reinforcement project builds on and reinforces the results of the ongoing project.

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.

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

• 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. 
• 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 registration and disclosure of medical and health-related studies involving human participants.

Please note that you can only submit the application once. If you submit the application and subsequently see that it needs to be changed, you can create a new application – e.g. as a copy of the one you have already submitted – and in that way submit a new version. In this case, you must send an email to the Research Council, see contact information in the call, notifying us of this.

• The application and all attachments must be written in Norwegian and/or English.
• All attachments must be in PDF format.

Mandatory attachments

• Project description of a maximum of 5 pages. Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page.
• If the application includes funding for a doctoral fellowship or postdoctoral fellowship, confirmation of security clearance and authorisation for the research fellow must be attached, or alternatively a confirmation including a description of how the process for advertising a research fellowship position and appointment is carried out so that the requirement for security clearance is met. You should upload the attachment under the attachment category "Other".
• CV for new, key participants who do not participate in the ongoing project. Use the default template that you can download at the bottom of the page.
• Letters of intent from new partners.
  
  • See sample letter of intent on our guidance page. 

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

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:

All applications will be assessed by the Research Council's administration and will be read by a minimum of two case officers. Applications are assessed against the three criteria, and are also given a separate relevance mark and an overall mark. All grades are given on a scale from 1 to 7, where 7 is the best.

All applications with an overall mark of 4 or lower and/or a relevance mark of 4 or lower will not be eligible for funding.

Applications with an overall mark of 5 or higher and a relevance mark of 5 or higher are eligible for funding. These are presented to the Portfolio Board for Enabling Technologies, which makes the final decision on which applications will be funded.

Expected response to the application: As soon as possible and no later than the end of September 2024. If there are remaining funds, new applications will receive a response in mid-December 2024.