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Project Grants for research within Plant Science, Agriculture and Food Biotechnology

Call opens
16 June 2022
Call closes
25 August 2022 2:00pm (CET)
Announcement of results
December 2022
Recurring calls
Expected June 2023
Application guidelines

Purpose

Applications are invited for project grants to support excellent research within plant science, agriculture* and food biotechnology. Projects must be based at a university or other non-profit research institution in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, or Sweden.

The proposed research should address major challenges within plant, agricultural, and food science associated with developing sustainable agriculture and food production. The research should be fundamental in character with a clear and strategic outlook to improve sustainability and potential solutions. The proposed research should significantly extent existing knowledge beyond state-of-the-art and may have a high-risk profile. The research should be based on life science research disciplines.

Non-exclusive list of prioritized areas:

  • Development of plants with high productivity, resiliency, and resource-use-efficiency for food, fiber, materials, fuel and energy, chemicals, or climate change mitigation
  • Utilization of microorganisms to improve sustainability across the value chain from primary agricultural production to end-product
  • Development of agricultural-, food-, and forestry systems with higher productivity, circularity, and biodiversity, and with minimum impact on environment and climate
  • Development of plant-, microorganism-, and fungi-based foods with low resource-use-technologies and high functionality, organoleptic, and nutritional quality
  • Utilization of precision fermentation, fungi, algae, and cellular agriculture for novel food production
  • Development of methods and technologies, including those driven by data science, that enable and support sustainable agriculture and food production.

The program will not support:

  • Research primarily focusing on livestock, livestock commodities, and feed
  • Research with their main research component on nutritional uptake and clinical studies.

Proposals focusing on industrial biotechnology and environmental biotechnology should be submitted to the Novo Nordisk Foundation Committee Industrial Biotechnology and Environmental Biotechnology, while proposals with a focus on pharmaceuticals and therapeutics should be submitted to the Novo Nordisk Foundation Committee on Bioscience and Basic Biomedicine.

*Agriculture is here defined as terrestrial farming and cultivation of plants, including forestry.

About the grant

Amount

Up to DKK 4 million

Location

Nordic region

Committee

Committee on Plant Science, Agriculture and Food Biotechnology

Contact

For grant inquiries
Sisse Marquina-Jongberg
Senior Scientific Lead, PhD
[email protected]
Camilla Stensgaard Andersson
Grant Manager
[email protected]

Nordic Region

Eligibility

Researchers with an independent research program at a university or other non-profit research institution in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, or Sweden are eligible to apply for the project grants.

Funding

Grants can support research activities at a level of DKK 300.000 – 1 million per year for 1 to 3 years. For projects having a main applicant and a co-applicant located in different Nordic countries, the maximum amount that may be applied for is DKK 1.35 million per year.

Grant funding is available for expenses including direct project costs as well as salary for scientific researchers, technical assistants, and PhD students. Funding from the grant cannot cover salary for the main applicant or co-applicants as well as general overhead costs. Up to 5 % administrative costs can be included.

Grants may fund an entire project or a clearly defined part of a major project (in the latter case, a summary of the major project must be included).

Application process

Applications must be completed and submitted using the online system following the instructions in the “Information and guidelines for applicants”. Additional essential information regarding eligibility, funding and the application process is found in this PDF.

Listings

Grant listings

All the projects we have funded are listed here. You can customise your search by grant year and category and use free text search.
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Managing a grant

Read more about how to manage a grant and what general information you need as a grant holder.