NOK 333 million in funding was announced for the 10 April 2013 application deadline. Nearly half of this amount was earmarked for research on climate systems
A total of 330 grant applications were received for the 10 April deadline. The Research Council of Norway receives approximately 5 000 grant applications each year distributed over six main grant application deadlines. The number of applications submitted for the April deadline was well below the norm.
Much-needed boost for climate studies
Climate research programmes at the Research Council of Norway accounted for NOK 160 million of the NOK 333 million in available funding. This is thus the largest ever funding round for research on climate systems.
"The Large-scale Programme on Climate Change and Impacts in Norway (NORKLIMA) has been one of the main sources of funding for climate research in Norway," says NORKLIMA programme coordinator Gørill Kristiansen. "With new funding on the table we can finally give a real boost to climate-system research, which is a resource-intensive field."
New large-scale programme
Starting in 2014, the NORKLIMA programme will be replaced by the Large-scale Climate Programme (KLIMAFORSK) which, together with the Polar Research Programme (POLARPROG), is providing a significant portion of the funding announced under this call for proposals.
A preliminary work programme for the KLIMAFORSK programme will be submitted for review in May.
"With its additional funding and a somewhat broader thematic orientation, the new programme will bring new momentum to Norwegian climate research. We will be conducting a broad-based, inclusive review process, and we hope to be able to present a final work programme as well as an overview of the calls for proposals planned for the next five years sometime around Christmas," Ms Kristiansen states.
The KLIMAFORSK programme has already granted funding to pre-projects in advance of the first large-scale call for proposals under the programme. This call will be published before the summer and will have an autumn deadline.The NORKLIMA programme received a total of 49 grant applications seeking altogether NOK 521.4 million in this funding round.
Norwegian climate scientists are the world’s most prolific in terms of publications per capita. In Norway, the number of research articles on climate research being published is climbing faster than in any other research field.
