Hallas-Møller Emerging Investigator: Bioscience and Basic Biomedicine Grant (Denmark)

Focus Areas

• The fundamental research should be within bioscience and/or basic biomedicine and the project relevant for understanding the human organism and/or basal mechanisms underlying health and disease. The research fields include (but are not limited to): molecular biology, cell biology, bioinformatics, modelling of biological systems, genetics, microbiology, pharmacology, experimental physiology, biophysics, biochemistry, biology, and biostatistics etc. The research will typically be carried out in animals, cellular or subcellular model systems, or in silico.
• The Novo Nordisk Foundation offers mutually exclusive calls within the areas listed below. It is the responsibility of the applicant to apply within the call most appropriate:
  • Endocrinology and metabolism
  • Clinical and translational medicine (for clinicians)
  • Industrial and environmental biotechnology
  • Plant science, agriculture and food biotechnology
  • Natural and technical sciences (NERD and RECRUIT)

Funding Information

• A total of up to DKK 45.6 million is available for grants.
• For each grant, approximately DKK 2.28 million can be awarded per year, over a 5-year grant period, for a total budget of up to DKK 11.4 million per grant.
• In the case of many applications of exceptionally high quality within one career stage, an amount of up to DKK 11.4 million of the total grant budget may exceptionally be transferred from calls for other career stages under the Research Leader Programme within the same committee.
• Also, in case the DKK 57 million for international recruitment at the Ascending career stage is not fully used, the remaining budget can be used for additional grants within the Emerging or Ascending Investigator categories.

Eligible Expenses

• Salary: for the applicant (for all or part of the project period, in case the applicant is not tenured or otherwise guaranteed his or her own salary in all or part of the project period) and/or salary for research and technical assistance, including postdoctoral researchers, PhD students, technicians and research-year students.
• Tuition fee: for PhD students (up to DKK 80,000 per budget year) – must be specified separately in the budget.
• Operating expenses: e.g. lab consumables, chemicals and reagents, research animals, sequencing/proteomics and other analysis services directly related to the project.
• Equipment: required for the project, however not exceeding 20% of the budget total.
• Conference participation and/or leadership courses: Up to DKK 50.000 per budget year can be requested for travel and registration expenses in relation to presenting
  the project at conferences and workshops, or for the applicant’s participation in leadership courses or workshops (e.g. EMBO laboratory Leadership Course or the Workshop on Leadership in Bioscience by Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory).
• Travel: travel expenses directly related to the project, i.e. experiments carried out in other labs for a limited period.
• Publication costs: of results emanating from the research project (up to DKK 50,000 per budget year).
• Project supplement for research grants (Danish universities only)
• Bench fee (not applicable to Danish universities)
• Administrative support (not applicable to Danish universities)

Ineligible Expenses

• The Foundation will not award funding for:
  • Commercial activities
  • Overhead/indirect costs (such as rent, electricity, water and maintenance)
  • Double funding of projects

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants must be starting group leaders. At the time of application, applicants should be at the level of senior postdoc, senior researcher, assistant or associate professor:
  • Applicants who are already established independent group leaders with two or more senior/last authorships and/or 2-3 years of group leader experience should apply for Hallas-Møller Ascending Investigator. They will only exceptionally be considered ‘Emerging Investigators’ and must in their application argue why they should be considered ‘Emerging’.
  • Likewise, applicants who at the time of application already have secured a ‘starting’ grant of similar size and duration (e.g., Lundbeckfonden Fellowships, Villum Young Investigator, ERC starting grant) are only exceptionally awarded this grant. If applying while having such a grant, it is crucial to argue in the application how one will manage two large and non-overlapping projects and why one would need a second starting grant.
• The applicant cannot be a group leader in one of the Novo Nordisk Foundation research centres, where research support is included in the affiliation to the centre.
• The applicant cannot have a grant portfolio exceeding an annual total of DKK 4 million (excluding possible overhead) in the year of commencing the project.
• Recipients of this grant must contribute to the pre-graduate teaching environment at their host institution. An Emerging Investigator grant must not be used to cover a teaching substitute for the applicant.
• The Emerging Investigator call is intended for ‘full-time’ researchers (teaching obligations included), i.e., researchers with clinical obligations cannot apply for this grant.

For more information, visit Novo Nordisk Foundation.