Deadline: 11-Jan-23
The Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) is pleased to announce an open call for the Emerging Investigator Grants for Research within Plant Science, Agriculture & Food Biotechnology 2023.
The NNF seeks to support upcoming and highly promising research leaders within plant science, agriculture1 and food biotechnology in the Nordic countries. The intention of the Emerging Investigator grant is to enable excellent scientists to establish their own research group or to further strengthen their recently started group.
Priorities
- 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
Funding Information
A total of up to DKK 20 million is available for grants up to DKK 10 million over a 5-year grant period.
Eligibility Criteria
- The applicant must at the time of application be at the level of senior postdoc, senior researcher, assistant professor, or newly employed associate professor (or any level equivalent to one of these positions).
- Ideally, applicants should have 4-8 years of research experience after having received their PhD degree.
- Applicants should have a strong track record within their field of research relative to their career stage, which will typically include primary or senior authorships on high-impact research publications, contributions to key conferences in the field, important technology developments etc.
- Applicants who are already established independent group leaders with more than two years of group leader experience are only exceptionally considered `Emerging Investigators´. Instead, they would typically fit into the ´Ascending Investigator´ category.
- Applicants who, at the time of application, have already secured a `starting grant´ with similar scope (e.g. Villum Young Investigator, DFF – Sapere Aude, ERC starting grant, etc.) are only considered eligible if they in the application can argue how management of two large and clearly non-overlapping projects is feasible.
- Importantly, applicants should have a clear goal and strong motivation for starting their own independent research group, or further strengthening their newly started research group.
- Researchers from across the world with the academic potential to establish 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 Emerging Investigator grant. This host institution administrates the grant.
- During the grant period, the grant recipient and the associated group members must be employed at the administrating host institution.
- A hosting letter signed by the head of department/institute must be provided. The letter should confirm that the host institution will provide the required infrastructure, laboratory and office facilities, as well as administration of the grant.
- The grant cannot be used to cover teaching substitutes. Grant recipients must contribute to the teaching environment at the host institution in the ways, and at the levels, that are required or expected for the grant recipient´s position there.
- Applicants may submit only one application per call.
For more information, visit https://novonordiskfonden.dk/en/grant/emerging-investigator-grants-for-research-within-plant-science-agriculture-and-food-biotechnology-2023-nordic-region/