Deadline: 2-Jul-25
The Novo Nordisk Fonden has launched the Start Package Grants to make Danish universities and other research institutions more competitive when recruiting excellent researchers.
The aim is also to strengthen researcher mobility across borders, among Danish universities and/or from industry to university.
The grant is intended to provide leverage for the hiring university/research institution during recruitment and contract negotiations and to accompany the offer of a research position of one of the following types:
- a tenure track position at the assistant professor level
- a time-unlimited position at the associate- or full professor level
- a clinical- or clinical chair professorship position with mandatory research responsibilities for a minimum of five years.
Areas of support
- The grant supports recruitment of researchers within medical sciences, life sciences, sustainability, or natural and technical sciences in fields that are in alignment with the Foundation’s 2030 Strategy. This includes:
- Preventing and managing cardiometabolic diseases
- Decreasing the burden and threat of infectious diseases
- Advancing and applying regenerative medicine
- Reducing inequity in health
- Sustainable and high yield agriculture
- Sustainable food for healthy diets
- High-impact climate change mitigation technologies
- Supporting society in the green transition
- Fundamental research with potential application within health or sustainability, for instance bioscience, metabolism, the microbiome, systems biology, natural and technical sciences, data and computer science, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, mathematical modelling, materials science, robotics, etc.
- Interdisciplinary research with potential application within health or sustainability
- Technology development with potential application within health or sustainability
Funding Information
- A total of up to DKK 92 million is available for grants. For each grant, the following amount can be awarded over a 4-year grant period:
- Up to DKK 5 million for a tenure-track position at the assistant professor level
- Up to DKK 8 million for a position at the associate professor level
- Up to DKK 10 million for a position at the full professor level
- Up to DKK 10 million for a position as clinical- or clinical chair professor
Eligibility Criteria
- Only applications submitted by the person with the appointment authority at the recruiting institution will be considered for funding. All other applications will receive an administrative rejection by the Foundation.
- To be eligible for a Start Package Grant, the following requirements must be met:
- Recruiting institution
- The recruiting institution must be a university, hospital, or other non-profit research organisation in Denmark.
- The recruiting institution may only submit one Start Package Grant application per vacant faculty position and designated candidate. There is no limit to how many applications the institution may submit in total, provided there is no overlap in the positions applied for.
- Prior to the application deadline, the recruiting institution must have identified their top candidate for the vacant position and performed an evaluation by a scientifically competent and objective appointment committee.
- If the candidate is awarded a Start Package Grant, the recruiting institution must within two months of notification provide confirmation that the appointment has been cosigned by all involved parties, otherwise the grant is null and void.
- Position
- The position offered to the candidate must be a research position, with eligibility criteria depending on the level of the position:
- At the assistant professor level, the position must be part of the institution’s tenure track programme, i.e., assistant professors in time-limited positions are not eligible for this programme. The position must have been announced in a public call.
- At the associate or full professor level, the position must be a time-unlimited research position. The position may have been announced in a public call or the candidate may have been ‘called’. A professor with special responsibilities (“WSR”, in Danish: “med særlige opgaver, MSO”) is not eligible for a full professor-level Start Package grant but is eligible for an associate professorlevel Start Package grant.
- For clinical- or clinical chair professor positions, research responsibilities must be a mandatory part of the position, and the duration must be a minimum of five years. The position may have been announced in a public call or the candidate may have been ‘called’.
- Candidate
- The candidate must show mobility and relocate to a new research institution as part of the recruitment. Internal recruitment is not supported; this also applies if the candidate relocates across faculties within the same institution.
- The candidate can be recruited either from abroad or within Denmark. However, if the recruitment occurs within Denmark, the candidate must be offered a position with career progression (i.e., from postdoc to tenure track assistant professor, assistant to associate professor, or associate to full professor/clinical professor).
- Candidate recruitment can both be from one academic institution to another, or from industry to an academic institution. The requirement of career progression does not apply if the candidate is recruited from industry.
- The candidate’s research plan and scientific profile must align with the strategy of the recruiting institution and with the Foundation’s strategy.
- Recruiting institution
Ineligibility Criteria
- The Foundation will not award funding for:
- Commercial activities
- Overhead/indirect costs (such as rent, electricity, water and maintenance)
- Double funding of projects
- The Start Package grant cannot be used to cover the candidate’s own salary; this must be covered by the recruiting institution or an external grant for a limited period
For more information, visit Novo Nordisk Fonden.
