Strategy and goals

Benefiting people and society

With Denmark as its centre of gravity, the Foundation’s focus is to improve lives of people through better health, education and the development of a knowledge-based sustainable society.

Focus areas and long-term goals

Biomedical and health science research and applications

In the future the Foundation will expand its activities and impact beyond physiology, metabolism and endocrinology.

Patient-centred and research based care

Through a research-based approach, the Foundation will help make Denmark a global leader in delivering the best patient-centred care within diabetes.

Life science research and industrial applications promoting sustainability

Given the escalating global sustainability challenges and potential for research to make a positive impact in reducing environmental footprint, the Foundation will increase its focus on life science research.

Natural and technical science research and interdisciplinarity

Given the important role of research in the natural and technical sciences and how it contributes to advances in biomedicine and biotechnology, the Foundation will increase its focus on natural and technical science research and interdisciplinarity.

Innovation

The broad range of grant-awarding activities the Foundation supports puts it at the nexus of many key academic research, clinical care and industrial networks, making it a natural facilitator of the interdisciplinary dialogue and activity that spurs innovation.

Education and outreach

Education includes grant-awarding activities within Denmark that support students and teachers from preschool through post-secondary education.

Social, humanitarian and development aid

The Foundation will focus its social, humanitarian and development aid objective on children and young people.

Vision

The Novo Nordisk Foundation’s vision is to contribute significantly to research and development that improves the lives of people and the sustainability of society.

Respecting independent research and good ideas

The Foundation has awarded more than 12,000 grants for research and other purposes throughout its history.

Increasing our grant payouts for scientific, humanitarian and social purposes over the coming years will increase our contribution to society. Within the Foundation, we are very aware of the greater responsibility this imposes.

We have a set of principles to ensure the quality and accountability of our grants. We support and respect the freedom and independence of research. Grants are not conditional on preferential access by third parties to the research results. Researchers have full publishing freedom, and the research results based on a Foundation grant belong to the researchers and the public research institutions.

We encourage the dissemination and accessibility of new knowledge and results. Making good ideas and new knowledge accessible to as many people as possible is crucial to benefit society as a whole. Another basic principle we embed in all our grants is that we only support projects of the highest quality. Whether the applicant is well established or a young talent, the key criterion is the quality of the project. We believe that by setting high standards we will achieve results that have the maximum and sustainable impact on society.

We have a thorough selection process in which all applications are assessed by one of the Foundation’s committees or through international peer review before the Foundation decides to award a grant. Thus, we make use of independent experts who have valuable insight in the respective research fields the Foundation supports.

This ensures that the Foundation awards grants to the best projects.

The Foundation is always on the lookout for new ideas and innovative projects. We view collaboration across scientific fields, organizations and national borders as a strength that helps to drive research and development forward to create new solutions.

We are transparent about our work. We listen to other people’s opinions and advice, and we are pleased to explain the basis for our priorities and the purpose of our decisions. In 2017, the Foundation received more than 2000 applications and awarded more than 430 grants.
We expect to receive a growing number of grant applications in the coming years, and our principles for awarding grants must therefore help to ensure that we can maintain high standards in our grants. This will ensure the best results within research, innovation and education to benefit society

Birgitte Nauntofte,
CEO, Novo Nordisk Fonden / Novo Nordisk Foundation

Here you can read our strategy folder.