Distinguished 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)
  • Natural and technical sciences (NERD and RECRUIT)

Funding Information

• A total of up to DKK 22.8 million is available for up to two 5-year grants, each of up to DKK 11.4 million with approximately DKK 2.28 million per year. Annual budget amounts may diverge (e.g., due to equipment costs).
• In the case of many applications of exceptionally high quality within one career stage within the Research Leader Programme, the committee may decide to transfer up to DKK 11.4 million from one career stage to another.

Eligible Expenses

• 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: conference travel and participation for presentation of research results in relation to the project or participation in research leadership courses or workshops, up to DKK 50,000 per budget year.
• 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
  • Salary for the applicant

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants must be professors (MSO included).
• 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. A Distinguished Investigator grant must not be used to cover a teaching substitute for the applicant.
• This Distinguished 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.