Purpose

The Novo Nordisk Foundation wishes to make significant contributions to the sustainability of society and the environment. The Ascending Investigator grant supports the continued development and consolidation of excellent research leaders within plant science, agriculture and food biotechnology in the Nordic countries.

The proposed research should address major challenges within plant-, agricultural- and food science associated with developing sustainable agriculture and food production. There should be a clear and strategic outlook to improve sustainability and provide high-impact solutions at a large scale.

The proposed research must involve a clear element of biotechnology^*, have an outlook to scaling potential(s) while contributing to productivity and sustainability. The research projects should preferably include one or more of the following topics:

• Plants with increased productivity, resiliency, nutritional content and/or resource-use efficiency
• Development of plants for food, fibre, fuels, materials, chemicals and carbon storage
• Biological approaches to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture
• Biological approaches supporting productivity and resiliency of agricultural production
• Fundamental research within sustainable foods and food processing
• Functionality and the associated structures of food components
• Data science promoting research within plant science, agriculture and food biotechnology

The program does not support:

• Research focusing on livestock, livestock commodities and feed.
• Research with a main component within nutritional uptake and metabolic effects of specific foods.

Projects with a focus on pharmaceuticals and therapeutics should submit their application to the Novo Nordisk Foundation Committee on Bioscience and Basic Biomedicine.

^*For the biotechnology requirement, the OECD short definition of biotechnology will be used as a reference for assessments. The OECD single definition of biotechnology is: the application of science and technology to living organisms, as well as parts, products and models thereof, to alter living or non-living materials for the production of knowledge, goods and services.