Distinguished Innovator Grant Program

The Distinguished Innovator Grant Health is aimed at supporting senior faculty members or researchers with a proven track record within innovation, i.e., previous experience of academic innovation projects and experience with establishing patents and spinouts from the academia. The grant is aimed at supporting novel academic science-based discoveries with a commercial potential. The grant aims to stimulate the evaluation of ideas and to support experiments and activities leading to proof-of-concept or beyond.

The purpose of the Distinguished Innovator Grant Sustainability is to accelerate commercialisation of research findings and the development of novel technologies within sustainability.

The Distinguished Innovator Grant Sustainability is aimed at supporting senior faculty members or researchers with a proven track record within innovation, i.e., previous experience of academic innovation projects and experience with establishing patents and spinouts from the academia. The grant aims to stimulate the evaluation of ideas and to support experiments and activities leading to proof-of-concept or beyond.

Both research areas within Distinguished Innovator Grant is aimed at facilitating the role of the main applicant as an ambassador for innovation within academia, i.e., to drive cultural change and act as a role model for translating basic research into innovations.

Areas of Support

• The Distinguished Innovator Grant Sustainability seeks to support research within agriculture, food, industrial and environmental biotech, carbon capture, utilisation and storage technologies as well as nitrous oxide and methane emissions, and quantum technologies. The aim is to stimulate the evaluation of ideas that may lead to the development of new products or systems, devices and technological platforms in relation hereto. Particular focus will be placed on projects covering sustainable and high yielding agriculture, sustainable food for healthy diets, and climate change mitigation technologies to support the green transition.
• The Distinguished Innovator Grant Health seeks to support innovative research within med-tech, industrial biotech, pharma as well as quantum technologies. Furthermore, the intent is to stimulate the evaluation of ideas that for example could lead to the development of new medical treatment, disease prevention, diagnostic methods as well as new health technologies, devices and technological platforms. Particular focus will be placed on projects covering cardiometabolic diseases as well as infectious diseases and preventive solutions hereto.
• For both parts of the Distinguished Innovator Grant, it is important to provide the support needed to succeed with the project maturation, i.e., support from experts within legal counsel, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Furthermore, the grant is focused on the role of the applicant as an ambassador for Innovation within academia.
• According to the OECD definition of biotechnology: the application of science and technology to living organisms, as well as parts, products and models thereof, to alter living or non-living materials for the production of knowledge, goods and services.
• Cardiometabolic diseases including for example: heart attack, stroke, peripheral arterial disease, obesity, diabetes and fatty liver disease.

Project Scope

• The Distinguished Innovator project idea and focus must be directly linked to improving the lives of patients and health of people (health), or sustainable and high yielding agriculture, sustainable food for healthy diets, and climate change mitigation technologies to support the green transition (sustainability).
• Applications in which the project idea is not directly linked hereto will receive an administrative rejection during the initial screening process of applications.

Funding Information

• The total grant budget is DKK 84 million in 2023, to cover both the Health and the Sustainability areas.
• Each grant can be of maximum DKK 6 million for a period of 3 years.

Eligibility Criteria

• The research project must comprise a main applicant and has the option of including co-applicant(s) when deemed relevant. Rules of eligibility are outlined in more detail below:
  • The Main Applicant:
    • The main applicant must be a senior faculty member or researcher employed at a research institution or hospital/clinic in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, or Sweden).
    • It is required that the main applicant has a personal proven track record within innovation, i.e., previous experience of academic innovation projects and experience of establishing patents and spinouts from the academia.
    • It is required that the main applicant is willing to act as an ambassador for innovation within academia and engage younger researchers and the surrounding innovation ecosystem.
  • Co-applicant(s):
    • Co-applicants can be included in the project but are not required.
    • Co-applicants may come from the same hosting institution as the main applicant or from a different university, hospitals, or research institutions locally and abroad.
  • Hosting Institution:
    • A Distinguished Innovator Grant must be administered by a non-profit organization.
    • A Distinguished Innovator Grant cannot be given to a company.
    • Projects from incubator development programs and projects where IPR is owned by a university’s holding institution, are eligible to apply if:
    • The administrating institution is the university
    • The project and its findings are anchored in academia
    • The project has not resulted in the establishment of a company (given company has not established a CVR/company number).

Ineligible

• NNF will not award funding for:
  • Salary for main applicant and co-applicant(s)
  • Overhead.

For more information, visit NNF.