Record amount of funding for researcher schools
This spring, the Research Council of Norway will announce approximately NOK 325 million in funding for the establishment of new national researcher schools. The application submission deadline is 15 April 2015. Funding will be provided by several of the Research Council's thematic programmes and activities, in addition to the ordinary funding from the scheme for national graduate-level researcher schools (FORSKERSKOLER).
"The extra funds from thematic programmes will enable us to double the amount of funding that we initially had for national researcher schools," states a pleased Anders Hanneborg, Executive Director of the Division for Science at the Research Council.
More candidates will complete their degrees
The FORSKERSKOLER scheme has been administered by the Research Council since 2008, based on allocations from the Ministry of Education and Research. Each researcher school consists of a network of institutions that have entered into binding cooperation on doctoral-level training in a specific field.
The overall objective of the scheme is to raise the calibre of researcher training. The researcher training schools enable more doctoral candidates to complete their degrees and to reduce time to degree completion. The schools are also designed to promote internationalisation in researcher training in Norway.
Earmarked funding for researcher schools
The following programmes are contributing funding under the call for proposals:
- The Research Programme on Sustainable Innovation in Food and Bio-based Industries (BIONAER)
- The Large-scale Programme for Petroleum Research (PETROMAKS 2)
- The Large-scale initiative on efficient health, care and welfare services (HELSEVEL)
- The Programme for Global Health and Vaccination Research (GLOBVAC)
- The Research Programme on Biotechnology for Innovation (BIOTEK 2021)
- The Large-scale Initiative on Information Technology and Digital Innovation (IKTPLUSS)
The call is not limited to specific fields. Nevertheless, the funding from the individual thematic programmes will be awarded to projects that address topics within those programmes. Funding allocated directly from the Ministry of Education and Research has no stipulations regarding thematic area and will be awarded to the best grant proposals overall.
National researcher schools
The scheme for national graduate-level researcher schools (FORSKERSKOLER) has been administered by the Research Council of Norway since 2008 and currently finances 15 schools throughout the country. The scheme receives an annual allocation of NOK 40 million from the Ministry of Education and Research.
Researcher schools may have an annual budget framework of up to NOK 3 million and funding may be sought for a period of six to eight years, depending on the size of the network and the school. A mid-term evaluation of each school is conducted to determine whether funding should be continued.
Researcher schools consist of a network of research groups and are intended to expand the activity and capacity of the participating groups. Doctoral fellows are given good access to researcher networks and supervision. This helps to strengthen national and interdisciplinary cooperation as well as increase national and international mobility.
