Pioneer Innovator Grant to support Sustainability & Health

Both areas of the Pioneer Innovator Grants seek to support novel academic science-based discoveries with commercial potential. The grant aims to stimulate the evaluation of ideas and to support experiments and activities leading to proof-of-concept or beyond.

Areas of support

• The Pioneer Innovator Grant Sustainability seeks to support innovative 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 intent 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 Pioneer Innovator Grant Health seeks to support innovative research within med-tech, industrial biotech, pharma as well as quantum technologies. Furthermore, the intend 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.
• The projects described must have a clear outlook to scaling potentials and later commercialisation possibilities.

Funding Information

• The total grant budget is DKK 70 million in 2023, to cover both the Health and the Sustainability areas. Each granted project can receive a grant of up to DKK 1 million for one year.
• Applicants may apply for funding for the following types of expenses:
  • Salary for research assistance on every level (including technicians, postdoctoral researchers, PhD students).
  • Salary for employees or project consultants at all staffing levels, including project management (including technical and administrative assistance).
  • Operating expenses: consumables, materials, animals, human test subjects, expenses relating to clinical trials, services, access to registries, access to laboratory facilities, databases and infrastructure etc.
  • Equipment required for the project.
  • Communication activities: Communication and outreach in the form of conferences, books, articles, and other dissemination directly related to the project.
  • Conference participation: Travel and registration expenses in relation to presentation of the project and research results at conferences and workshops, up to DKK 25,000 per budget year.
  • Travel: Travel expenses related directly to the project, i.e., experiments carried out in other labs for a limited period, workshops etc., up to DKK 25,000 per budget year.
  • Publication costs: Publication of results emanating from the research project.
  • Commercialization costs directly related to the project (fees for consultants, licenses, patents etc.)
  • Direct administrative expenses of up to 5 % of the total funding applied for and must be included in the budget.
  • Bench fee.
  • Legal counsel on intellectual property (IP).

Eligibility Criteria

• The research project must comprise a main applicant and has the option of including co-applicants when deemed relevant.
  • The Main Applicant:
    • The main applicant must be a faculty member, a researcher or a student employed at a university, hospital, or other research institution in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, or Sweden).
  • Co-applicant(s):
    • Co-applicants can be included in the project, but not required.
    • Co-applicants may come from the same hosting institution as the main applicant or from different university, hospitals, or research institutions locally and abroad.
  • Hosting Institution:
    • A Pioneer Innovator Grant must be administered by a non-profit organization.
    • A Pioneer 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)
  • Project Scope:
    • The Pioneer Innovator project idea and focus must be directly linked to improving the lives of patients and health of people or sustainability. Applications in which the project idea is not directly linked to such scope will receive an administrative rejection during the initial screening process of applications.

Language

• The application and any additional uploads must be written in English.

For more information, visit Novo Nordisk Fonden.