Novo Nordisk Foundation Tandem Programme (Denmark)

Collaborative project applications from one basic and one clinical researcher, that seek to stimulate the transition of basic research to clinical practice and vice versa are invited.

Areas of Support

• One basic scientist and one clinical scientist must apply together for a project, which is clinically relevant, cross-disciplinary, and translational in nature, to catalyze improved treatment or diagnosis of patients, or understanding of underlying disease mechanisms level, while they have maintained an association with clinical work and responsibility.

Funding Information

• A total of up to DKK 47.2 million is available for grants between DKK 8,000,000 and DKK 11,800,000 for projects lasting four years.

Eligible Expenses

• Salary for research and technical assistance: required for the project, e.g. postdoctoral researchers, PhD students (incl. tuition fee up to DKK 80,000 per budget year, which must be specified/applied for in the budget), technicians and research-year students, etc.
• 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 total budget.
• Travel expenses: in relation to the project, i.e. conference and workshop participation and presentation of research results, up to DKK 50,000 per budget year.
• Other travel expenses: directly related to the project, i.e. experiments carried out in other labs for a limited period.
• Publication of results: emanating from the research project, up to DKK 25,000 per budget year.
• Project Supplement: for Danish Universities only, the new agreement on Project Supplement applies, under which all approved project specific scientific university FTEs (PhDs, post docs and research assistants) trigger a yearly fixed project supplement to the Universities.
• Administrative support: not applicable to Danish universities up to 5% of, and included in, the funding applied for.
• Bench fee: can be included in the budget for support of individual researchers to cover expenses needed to conduct the proposed research.

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

• The project must be anchored at a university, hospital or other non-profit research institution in Denmark.
• The main applicant must have his/her primary employment (minimum 75%) at a university, hospital or other non-profit research institution in Denmark. The co-applicant can be anchored in Denmark or abroad.
• Only applications where one basic and one clinical researcher (must see patients) establish a cross-disciplinary collaboration will be considered for funding. In this context, a clinical researcher is defined as a person with clinical responsibilities doing patient-centered research.
• It is crucial that the equal collaboration between the main- and co-applicant is very clear from the application.
• The main applicant can be either the basic researcher or the clinical researcher.
• The clinical researcher must be active in the clinic and have current clinical responsibilities, i.e. not be employed in a full-time research position.
• The grant cannot cover the salaries for the main- and co-applicant. Therefore, the main- and co-applicant must be guaranteed his or her salaries for the entire applied project period.
• Both the main applicant and the co-applicant must receive a defined part of the grant budget, and this must be detailed in the application budget, and it must be clear from the application, how the project collaboration is ensured, and the work is distributed.

For more information, visit Novo Nordisk Foundation.