Please also note:

• Funding can be sought for collective research projects or research-practice projects. For the latter, there must be an equal partnership between researchers and practitioners throughout the project, with meaningful outcomes for both sides.

• The maximum amount you can apply for is between 2.0 and 5.5 million DKK.

• The main applicant (project leader) must be employed in a permanent position at the relevant institution for the entire duration of the project.

• The project must include humanities and/or social sciences university researchers at associate professor or professor level.

• The application must be written in Danish.

You can apply for funding for the following:

• Buyout/salary for permanently employed researchers at universities, university colleges, or similar institutions with a research obligation, for example for project management. However, no more than 10% of the total grant may go to buyout/salary for a single researcher, and no more than 15% for two or more researchers combined. There are no restrictions on how the 15% is distributed among the researchers.

• Salaries for other project participants, including practitioners if applicable.

• PhD and postdoc fellowships. PhD salaries follow the state pay scale (steps 1–8, including agreed supplements). If a higher salary is desired for the PhD candidate, the institution must cover the extra cost as co-financing.

• Project-specific costs related to activities, operations, meetings, conferences, publications, outreach, enhanced dissemination of results, implementation of methods, etc.

• A project supplement to cover indirect costs, as defined in the agreement with Danish Universities. More details can be found here: Agreement with foundations on research project funding – Danish Universities (dkuni.dk).

• Education allowance for PhD students (maximum DKK 50,000 per year per fellowship).

Read the full call (DK only).

Please also note:

• The project must identify a societal challenge related to social and/or environmental sustainability and/or transitions and changes in adult life, and must contribute with new developments and solutions in these areas.

• The research and practice components must be closely integrated in the overall project design and be interdependent. The collaboration between research and practice must be genuinely established by the time of submitting the expression of interest—not just intended.

• The project must include permanently employed university researchers at associate professor or professor level.

• You may apply for up to 5.9 million DKK, and the project duration can be between 3 and 5 years.

• Both the expression of interest and any full application must be written in Danish.

• Funding for permanently employed university researchers should be limited and must not exceed 10% of the total amount applied for. This can go up to 15% if researchers from university colleges or other institutions with research rights and obligations are involved. Any salary costs for these staff members count toward the 15%. There are no restrictions on how the 15% is distributed between university researchers and researchers from other eligible institutions.

You may apply for funding for:

• Buyout/salary for practice-based professionals, project staff, researchers, and project leadership.

• PhD or postdoc fellowships, and to a limited extent, salary for project leadership.

• PhD salaries follow the official state pay scale (steps 1–8, including applicable supplements). If a higher salary is desired, the institution must cover the additional cost.

• See also the agreement with Danish Universities regarding project supplements. More information here: Agreement with foundations on research project funding – Danish Universities (dkuni.dk)

  • Please note: the HUMpraxis program triggers the “dry” project supplement.

• Practice-related activities and method development.

• Project-specific expenses related to operations, publications, meetings, conferences, etc.

• Dissemination of results and anchoring of methods and activities.

Read the full call (DK only).

If you have an idea for ground-breaking research, you can now apply for funding within ten politically determined themes with application deadlines on 27 May and 3 June 2025. The ten new and well-known themes span many different research areas and will be granted under the fund’s new funding instrument “DFF-Thematic”, which, among other things, focus specifically on collaboration, ensures longer duration for the research project and increases the maximum budget framework. In total, the fund will distribute approx. DKK 740 million for thematic research that can generate knowledge or contribute to new solutions for significant societal challenges.

Themes and Application Deadlines

The following themes have an application deadline on Tuesday, May 27, 2025, at 12:00 PM:

• Green research
• Strengthened clinical and independent research

The following themes have an application deadline on Tuesday, June 3, 2025, at 12:00 PM:

• Postdoctoral Exchange Programme in Quantum Research
• Research on antisemitism
• Research on artificial intelligence
• Research on learning and well-being in primary schools
• Research on vulnerability and poor well-being
• Research in psychiatry
• Strengthened research in specialized social services
• Research on elderly and ageing

DFF-Thematic – New funding instrument focusing on collaboration, duration and increased budget

Independent Research Fund Denmark introduces a new funding instrument, DFF-Thematic) when announcing the thematic call for proposals 2025. The funding instrument set out the general requirements applicable to the announced, politically determined thematic funds, and is brought into the world to better address the specific research needs typical of thematic areas, including practice-oriented research. DFF-Thematic has an increased budget framework and entails the possibility for longer duration of the research projects. Furthermore, DFF will place emphasis on collaboration, and therefore DFF-Thematic includes a requirement for the involvement of a Co-PI (Co-Principal Investigator).

The requirements for all thematic research projects remain that they must contribute to creating knowledge and new solutions to significant societal challenges.

Read the full announcement here.

Please note that for all thematic funds, the following applies:

• The project must be led by the applicant and a named Co-PI.
• You can apply for up to 5 million DKK without overhead.
• The research project duration is up to five years.
• The project description must be no more than 6 A4 pages and may contain up to 18,000 characters.

The following deadlines apply in relation to the schools internal process:

Note the following:

• Budget: An Inge Lehmann grant can be up to 2,500,000 DKK excluding overhead.
• Project duration: Typically 3 years, but there is the possibility to apply for a project of up to 4 years if the project includes PhD students.
• PhD age requirement: By the application deadline, you must have obtained your PhD degree at least 2 and no more than 6 years ago. If you do not have a PhD degree, you must have obtained qualifications that can be considered equivalent (e.g., positive assistant professor evaluation) at least 2 and no more than 6 years ago. (See section 5.3.5 in the Inge Lehmann call for calculation of PhD age). After the PhD degree, you must have obtained significant independent research experience equivalent to a minimum of 2 years.
• Position: As an applicant, you must be employed as an assistant professor/associate professor, researcher/senior researcher, or docent at a Danish research institution. Note: Employment as a postdoc does not fulfill the requirements for the applicant's position category.

Read the full announcement here.

The following deadlines apply in relation to the schools internal process:

Timeline and procedure: Mads Øvlisen PhD scholarships

• First and foremost, your project and qualifications must be pre-assessed by the PhD school (Graduate School, Arts) in order to determine whether you are qualified to undertake a PhD position. If you are deemed qualified, you will receive a letter of interest, and upon receiving a grant, you may be enrolled at the PhD school at Aarhus University.
• As a rule, you will both be enrolled and employed at CC, Aarhus University.
• You must obtain a hosting commitment from the institution where you are seeking employment. A prerequisite for receiving a hosting commitment from CC is that the research consultant at CC has approved the project’s budget (note: the budget template will be made available when the Novo Nordisk Foundation announces the 2026 call).

Timeline and procedure: Mads Øvlisen postdoc fellowships

Note: The processes will be updated with the correct dates in August.

The New Carlsberg Foundation awards PhD fellowships for projects addressing art-related research issues in the broadest sense, which are relevant to the activities of the applying museum, art center, or exhibition venue. This can involve more traditional art historical or theoretical research in connection with collections, but can also include other issues related to the institution’s role in society at large: strategy, curating, marketing, communication, and dissemination.

It is the museum/art center/exhibition venue that applies for – and if approved, receives – the funding from the New Carlsberg Foundation, and the applicant must include a hosting commitment from the university in the application. If the grant is awarded, a collaboration agreement will be established between the institution and the university, stating, among other things, that the PhD student will be enrolled in the university’s PhD school. As a rule, the place of employment is also Aarhus University.

Application procedure

• No later than August 23 2024, send: 1) a preliminary project description, 2) the name of a proposed main supervisor from the department, and 3) a draft budget (see standard budget template here) to research consultant Helle Breth Klausen (hbk@cc.au.dk). The research consultant will forward the description to the relevant administrative officer for an assessment of the academic relevance and anchoring of the project.
• If the project has a named PhD candidate, the candidate must be pre-qualified by the PhD school. Therefore, you must also send the following to the research consultant: 1) the project description, 2) the candidate’s CV, 3) transcripts and degree certificates, and 4) documentation of English language proficiency equivalent to English B-level from a Danish high school.
• If the project has an unnamed PhD candidate to be employed at the university, please note that the PhD school operates with two fixed recruitment rounds annually. Read more here: https://phd.arts.au.dk/academic-staff/call-deadlines-for-grant-holders (see ‘Deadlines’). If the university has approved that an unnamed candidate will be employed by the museum, the museum itself is responsible for the job posting, and the PhD school will approve the applicants.
• Once the administrative officer has approved the academic relevance of the project for the school, and the PhD school has pre-approved the PhD candidate, the research consultant will prepare a hosting commitment on behalf of the School of Communication and Culture, which can be attached to the application.

After preliminary approval from the New Carlsberg Foundation

• If the museum/art center/exhibition venue receives a preliminary approval for a grant, please send the grant letter to research consultant Helle Breth Klausen (hbk@cc.au.dk) in order to initiate the next steps.
• Note that the above refers to the university’s internal process, whereas the New Carlsberg Foundation operates with a “model 1” and “model 2”, which will only be finally decided upon in connection with the preliminary approval.

Practical Information

• The application deadline is September 18 2024, 12:00.
• Applications must be submitted via the New Carlsberg Foundation’s online application system.
• Read more about the call here: https://www.ny-carlsbergfondet.dk/en/phd-fellowships

Questions?

For questions regarding the call, contact research consultant at the New Carlsberg Foundation, Tom Hermansen (th@ncf.dk). For other inquiries, contact research consultant at the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Helle Breth Klausen (hbk@cc.au.dk).

Note: The processes will be updated with the correct dates in August.

The New Carlsberg Foundation awards postdoctoral fellowships for projects addressing art-related research questions in the broadest sense, which are relevant to the activities of the applying museum, art center, or exhibition venue. This may involve more traditional art historical or theoretical research in connection with collections, but can also encompass other issues related to the institution’s role in society at large: strategy, curating, marketing, communication, and dissemination.

It is the museum/art center/exhibition venue that applies for – and, if approved, receives – the funding from the New Carlsberg Foundation. The applicant must attach a hosting commitment from the university to the application. If the grant is awarded, a collaboration agreement will be established between the institution and the university. As a rule, Aarhus University will be the place of employment. For postdoctoral positions, there is a 20% teaching obligation at the School of Communication and Culture.

Application procedure

• No later than August 23 2024, send a preliminary project description and a draft budget (see standard budget template here) to research consultant Helle Breth Klausen (hbk@cc.au.dk). The research consultant will forward the description to the relevant administrative officer for an assessment of the academic relevance and anchoring of the project.
• Once the administrative officer has approved the project's academic relevance for the school, the research consultant will prepare a hosting commitment on behalf of the School of Communication and Culture, which can be attached to the application.

After preliminary approval from the New Carlsberg Foundation

• If the museum/art center/exhibition venue receives preliminary approval from the New Carlsberg Foundation, the institution must inform the Foundation which of the two employment models for the candidate it wishes to use (i.e., open call or designation of a named candidate). If a named candidate is proposed, the following documents must be sent to the research consultant: 1) PhD certificate or equivalent, 2) CV and 3) detailed project description, including a timeline

Practical Information

• The application deadline is September 18 2024, 12:00.
• Applications must be submitted via the New Carlsberg Foundation’s online application system.
• Read more about the call here: https://www.ny-carlsbergfondet.dk/en/postdoc-fellowships

Questions?

For questions regarding the call, contact research consultant at the New Carlsberg Foundation, Tom Hermansen (th@ncf.dk). For other inquiries, contact research consultant at the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Helle Breth Klausen (hbk@cc.au.dk).