Contact local research support
When you are considering applying for funding – contact local research support at your department/centre/faculty as soon as possible.
They can help with budgeting, planning of the application process and preparing the project – and can also give advice and answer any questions you may have.
Find contact persons for research support in your facility
Funding and proposals
External funding can come from various funding agencies. Consult with colleagues and local research support to find out what may be suitable for you and your research idea.
- Read more about funding research and mobility
- EU Research Funding
Courses and competence development
The writing of a good application is becoming more of a specialised genre.
Different funding agencies generally have clear expectations as to how an application should be built up and what it should contain. There is also usually a requirement to adhere to specific layouts and templates.
Different types of application
What an application should look like will also depend on the type of application. For example, there is a great difference between writing an application for a research project with a project leader and a small project group, as opposed to applying as a project leader for a large coordinator project with many partner organisations.
Read the call carefully and attend courses
- Obtain as good an overview as possible of what is required for the type of application you are planning to submit, before you start writing.
- Read the call carefully before writing the application.
- Read up on how to write a good abstract
- It can be of great help in presenting what is most important by consulting with people with expertise in the field.
- Attend courses. Courses are regularly held on how to write different type of applications:
- The EU office at UiO organises courses several times a year on what to bear in mind for writing good ERC applications. See overview of the EU office’s events and courses.
- The Research Council of Norway often organizes courses with suggestions as to how to write good coordinator-applications to the EU. See the list of events and courses at the Research Council of Norway.
- The Administrative Support Department holds regular courses in financial management. In addition, it offers tailor-made courses, where course content is agreed based on the needs of the participant. Read more about tailor-made courses in project financial management for externally-funded projects (in Norwegian.
- Please also check with local research support whether any courses in application writing are arranged in your own unit.
Learn from previous applications
Before you apply, there may be useful lessons to be learnt from previous applications:
- Learn from your own applications and feedback from these.
- Contact local research support and ask if they have samples of applications that have been approved.
- Also contact colleagues who have previously had applications rejected.
- To see projects that have previously been funded, you can read the summaries in the project bank at the Research Council of Norway and in EU’s summary of projects-CORDIS.
Approval by management
- As principal investigator, you are responsible for obtaining approval for the project in your unit.
- This is typically done by head of department or head of section.
- Approval from the manager should be documented, by e-mail or other means.
Deadlines
Some units have clear deadlines for approval.
Contact local research support to find out the deadlines for your unit.
Why should you obtain approval?
There are both academic and financial reasons why it is important to obtain support from the management.
Remember that, almost without exception, external projects involve costs for the unit/department in addition to your research time.
Early approval makes it easier to obtain good administrative support.
Elements that should be discussed:
- whether to apply - and by this deadline
- collaborating partners
- research-ethical issues
- need for research administration support
There is a special procedure for medical and health research internal project presentation (pdf) - see section 4.2.
Unit pages about externally funded projects
All the faculties, some departments and our museums have local pages about externally funded projects:
- Faculty of Humanitites (in Norwegian)
- Faculty of Law (in Norwegian)
- Faculty of Mathematical and Natural Sciences (in Norwegian)
- Faculty of Medicine
- Faculty of Dentistry (in Norwegian)
- Faculty of Social Sciences (in Norwegian)
- Faculty of Theology (in Norwegian)
- Faculty of Educational Sciences (in Norwegian)
- Museum of Cultural History (in Norwegian)
- Natural History Museum (in Norwegian)
Questions?
Contact local research support at your department/centre/faculty