Open Call: Nordic Mensa Fund Grants and Awards

Nordic Mensa Fund supports scientific research related to medical, psychological, sociological or educational aspects of intelligence and the human brain.

The calls can include larger grants for research groups or individual researchers, smaller grants for specific purposes (such as travel) or awards for valuable work already carried out (“article of the year award”). Dissemination of original research results to a wider, non-academic audience can be also supported.

The Nordic Mensa Fund board decides the call for each year and determines what kind of research is supported in that given year. A separate scientific advisory board will be used in the evaluation of the applications.

Funding Information

• Article of the year awards, €1,000 each, max five awards
• Project grants, up to €10,000

Eligibility Criteria

• The nominated author or the main applicant must be affiliated with one of the countries involved in the Nordic Mensa Fund: Sweden, Finland, Norway or Denmark, either by nationality, residence or affiliation with a university based in one of these countries.
  • Article of the year awards:
    • Personal grant for nominated individual authors of outstanding published scientific articles that are related to the research areas supported by the Fund and are published after 1st January 2023. The article can be written in English or one of the Nordic languages.
    • Anyone can nominate an article. The nominator can also be the author of the article. The award will be given to the nominated author as a personal grant.
    • Nomination is done in English through the nomination form and it should include a justification of max. 500 words. The justification should include the main findings of the article, its relevance to science and how it is connected to the areas of the Nordic Mensa Fund: medical, psychological, sociological or educational aspects of human intelligence.
  • Project grants:
    • The project grant is intended to cover direct research costs for a project related to one of the areas the foundation is supporting. Smaller grants can also be applied for to cover e.g. travel for conferences to present intelligence related research results, projects aiming to communicate/disseminate the research results to the general public or other research project related expenses.
    • Applications should be submitted in English through the application form. The application should include a PDF file with a max. 2-page research plan including the budget, and a 1 page CV of the main applicant. In addition, a short popular description of the project that can be published, as well as contact information for a reference person who supports the application should be provided.
    • The grant recipient will be required to provide a short report to the Nordic Mensa Fund within 12 months of the award of the grant. The Nordic Mensa Fund may withdraw the grant if such a report is not delivered. The grants will be paid and processed through the applicant’s university/institute finance system. For grants above 5 000€, 80% of the grant will be disbursed up front and the last 20% will be paid out when the final project report has been submitted and approved by the Fund.
    • A maximum overhead of 15% of the direct project costs may be applied. Direct costs are wages and salaries, including indirect employee costs, as well as research costs. Overheads may not be applied to equipment costs. The share of overheads will be considered in the evaluation of the applications.

For more information, visit Nordic Mensa Fund.