Ascending Investigator Grants for Research within Plant Science, Agriculture and Food Biotechnology

Scope 

• 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 extend 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 prioritised areas underlying the overall scope:
  • Development of plants with high productivity, resiliency, and resource-use-efficiency for food, fibre, 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 sustainable plant, microorganism, and fungi-based ingredients and foods with high functionality, and organoleptic quality. The proposed research should primarily focus on the technological aspects of food science and biotechnology, while nutrition and health-related aspects may be considered only to a limited extent.
  • Utilization of ingredients derived from precision fermentation, fungi, algae, insects, and cellular agriculture for food production.
  • Development of methods and technologies, including those driven by data science, that enable and support sustainable agriculture and food production. A significant proportion of the proposed research should explore the use of the new method or technology for its intended application.

Funding Information

• A total of up to DKK 22.5 million is available for grants of up to DKK 11.25 million for projects over a 5-year grant period. In the case of many applications of exceptionally high quality within one career stage, an amount of up to DKK 11.25 million of the total grant budget may exceptionally be transferred to calls for other career stages under the Research Leader Programme within the same committee and within the mandate letters for those, as approved by the Board of Directors. Any such transfer must be approved by the NNF committee responsible.

Eligible Expenses

• Applicants may apply for funding for the following types of expenses directly related to the project:
  • Salary: for the applicant for all or part of the project period in case the applicant is not tenured or guaranteed her or his own salary.
  • Salary: for research and technical assistance, including postdoctoral researchers, PhD students (incl. tuition fee up to DKK 80,000 per budget year), technicians and research year students.
  • 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 and workshop participation: and presentation of research results, up to DKK 50,000 per budget year.
  • Travel expenses: directly related to the project, i.e., experiments carried out in other labs for a limited period. Up to DKK 30,000 per budget year.
  • Publications costs: emanating from the research project, up to DKK 25,000 per budget year.
  • For Danish universities:
    • The new agreement on project supplement applies, under which all approved project specific scientific university FTEs (PhDs, postdocs and research assistants) trigger a yearly fixed project supplement to the university.
  • For other research institutions:
    • Bench fee: Must be specified in the budget, and may only be used for operating expenses, lab consumables, and access to lab space and facilities that cannot be included within another individual budget category. To include a bench fee in the budget, the fee must be part of the general expenses policy of the institute/institution and apply to all employees for which the policy concerns.
  • Administrative expenses: (up to 5 % of the funding applied for).

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

Ineligible Projects

• The program will not support:
  • Research primarily focusing on livestock, livestock commodities, and feed.
  • Research focusing on aquaculture, or its derived commodities.
  • Research with their main research component on nutritional uptake and clinical studies.

Eligibility Criteria

• Ascending Investigator grants are individual grants awarded to excellent established research group leaders with original and ambitious projects of high international standard, to support them in rising to the highest international level within their research field. Ideally, applicants should have 7-18 years of research experience after having received their PhD degree (leave of absence not included). Minor deviations will be tolerated if they can be justified.
• The applicant must at the time of application be at the associate professor level or have similar qualifications (e.g., senior assistant professor or senior researcher). Applicants must have their own research group. Professors, including MSO, cannot apply for this particular call.
• Applicants are expected to have a strong track-record relative to their career stage, typically including senior authorships on high-impact research papers, documented research leadership experience, contributions to relevant scientific communities, important method, and technology developments, etc.

For more information, visit Novo Nordisk Foundation.