Funder: Novo Nordisk Foundation
Due Dates: January 13, 2027, 2:00 p.m. CET (Application deadline)
Funding Amounts: Up to DKK 12.50 million per grant over five years; DKK 25 million available
Summary: Supports established Nordic research leaders pursuing fundamental industrial or environmental biotechnology research with scalable sustainability impact.
Key Information: Applicants must be associate-professor level or equivalent with an independent research group; professors, including MSO professors, cannot apply.
Description
The Novo Nordisk Foundation’s Ascending Investigator grants support the continued development and consolidation of excellent research leaders in industrial and environmental biotechnology in the Nordic countries. These individual grants fund original, ambitious fundamental research addressing major challenges, with a strategic outlook toward large-scale solutions that improve sustainability and, where relevant, productivity.
Priority areas include biological production of chemicals, proteins and materials; monitoring microbes, microbial activity and metabolites; bioproduction technologies; more efficient biomanufacturing; biotechnology for environmental protection; natural or engineered ecosystems; and supporting data science, digitalisation, data quality and accessibility. Projects must contain a clear biotechnology element, assessed using the OECD definition. Proposals focused on plant science, agriculture, food biotechnology, pharmaceuticals or therapeutics belong with other Foundation committees rather than this call.
