The application deadline is 28 May 2020.
NordForsk received a record number of proposals in response to the first phase of the call for interdisciplinary research projects. All the 334 pre-proposals have been evaluated by an international expert panel, and based on their scientific merit, 55 projects have been invited to submit a full proposal. The deadline for submitting proposals in phase two is 28 May 2020. The final decision on which proposals will be awarded funding will be announced at the end of 2020.
“We were pleased to see the wide range in research topics submitted to this call,” says Senior Adviser Anna Herou. “The evaluation process has shown that the level of both scientific quality and interdisciplinarity of the proposed research is very high, and in this strong competition 55 of the projects have been invited to advance to next phase. The invited proposals maintain a wide scope of topics and geographic distribution across the Nordic region.”
The Nordic Initiative for Interdisciplinary Research is a collaborative effort between the Academy of Finland, the Independent Research Fund Denmark, the Swedish Research Council, the Research Council of Norway and NordForsk.
Gender balance
Women project leaders have submitted 42 per cent of the total pre-proposals under the call, with men project leaders submitting 58 per cent. However, among the 55 recommended projects the numbers are essentially even, at 28 pre-proposals with a woman project leader and 27 with a man.
Distribution of proposals among Nordic countries
The 55 recommended pre-proposals encompass 634 researchers as project leaders or participating researchers. Researchers in the four co-funding countries make up the largest groups: 158 researchers in Sweden, 154 in Norway, 143 in Finland and 123 in Denmark – in total 91 per cent of the researchers involved. From the other Nordic countries, there are 29 researchers from Iceland, and one each from Åland and Greenland.
Budget
To be eligible for funding, projects must combine at least two of the following three research domains: life sciences; physical and engineering sciences; and social sciences and humanities. The research problems to be addressed must be interdisciplinary and not simply incorporate a method from another area; they must add value to all the scientific areas involved as well as to the interdisciplinary space. Each project may seek a maximum of NOK 15 million, and NordForsk will provide funding for 8–12 projects for up to four years.
NordForsk is trying to increase the budget to the call enabling that more projects are getting funded.
See the list of the 55 projects who have been invited to submit a full proposal.
