Call for UiO:Energy and Environment Convergence Environments 2024/2025

Through UiO:Energy and Environment Convergence Environments, we aim to foster the development of an interdisciplinary culture as well as partnerships between researchers at UiO and external stakeholders (from the industry, governmental bodies and/or the society at large) within sustainable energy, climate and environment. UiO:Energy and Environment will fund the development of up to four new Convergence Environments.

On this page you will find all relevant information regarding the 2024/2025 call. Read more about the information meeting, phase I - submission of sketches and phase II - full application. Please note that this web page will be updated as the process progresses and the call and evaluation process is finalized.

Timeline

• September 19^th 2024 - Information meeting and speed dating event. Presentation from the meeting.
• November 8^th 2024 - Deadline for submitting sketches and suggestions for expert
• December 2024 - Full application form opens,  feedback provided to each sketch
• February 28^th 2025 - Deadline for full applications
• Q1-Q2 2025 - Evaluation og full proposal and feedback to applicants (week 10-18), interview/presentations to evaluation panel (week 20/21)
• Q2 2025 - UiO:Energy and Environment Convergence Environments awarded (week 23/24)

Phase I - Sketches

Deadline for sketches: November 8^th 2024.

Information about submission of sketches

All parties interested in submitting a full proposal for UiO:Energy and Environment Convergence Environments must submit a sketch of a project proposal.

There are four main purposes the sketches and the feedback will serve:

• Ensure that projects that do not fulfill formal criteria or are not in line with the UiO:Energy and Environment mandate and strategy gets the appropriate feedback before a lot of work is been put into a final application
• Provide guidance to applicants of other relevant researchers/partner at UiO and avoid duplication of ideas from different applicants; ensure that (partially) overlapping project ideas that should talk to each other get that information
• Provide UiO:Energy and Environment with information on planned recruitment positions in each application so that we can do our best to assist in securing as many of them as possible from the relevant units
• Provide UiO:Energy and Environment with information on possible experts for the evaluation of the full proposal

The sketch form can be found here:

Sketch

Evaluation of sketches

• The sketches will be evaluated administratively by UiO:Energy and Environment management. Each applicant will receive a brief comment with recommendations, including information regarding (partially) overlapping initiatives. The sketches will not go through a qualitative scientific evaluation.

Phase II - Full application

The final call for full applications for UiO:Energy and Environment - Convergence Environments is subject to minor adjustments until January 10^th 2025. The final call will then be published alongside the full application form and template. All applicants that have submitted a sketch application in phase I are eligible. 

Deadline for full applications: February 28^th 2025. 

Goals

Each UiO:Energy and Environment Convergence Environment should:

• Advance research on sustainable transitions at UiO, while being in line with UiO:Energy and Environment¡¯s strategy and mandate and match at least one of UiO:Energy and Environment¡¯s four main research areas (see Requirements)
• Bring together UiO researchers from different disciplines around a common theme, enhancing collaboration and interdisciplinarity
• Interact with relevant external partners and stakeholders both nationally and internationally
• Recruit, educate and develop young researchers within a cross-disciplinary environment

Requirements

• The project leader must have a permanent position at UiO. Project leaders of Thematic Research Groups and/or Convergence Environments that are active in 2025, are not eligible as project leaders for this call.
• The UiO:Energy and Environment Convergence Environments must be developed within one or more of UiO:Energy and Environment¡¯s four main research areas:
  • Energy transition and the environment
  • People, society and climate
  • Energy systems, materials and models
  • A carbon-neutral society
• Must be in line with UiO:Energy and Environments Strategy and Mandate
• Should address societal challenges that are too complex for a single discipline. Must involve partners from at least two faculties/museums/centres (level 2). Each Convergence Environment must explore the possibilities for increased collaboration across disciplines and units at UiO
• The involved departments/centres are required to support the proposals of Convergence Environments, and they should be in line with the participating units? internal priorities and strategies
• Should include active collaboration with relevant external stakeholders both in the proposed activities and in governing the Convergence Environment. The proposal must briefly describe how this will be structured and ensured
• Active collaboration with relevant international research groups is encouraged
• Plan for recruitment positions and their affiliation. At least three recruitment position should be funded throughout the project period (up to five years)
• Own contributions should be clearly shown in the total budget (full application)
• The Convergence Environment will report to UiO:Energy and Environment annually.

About recruitment positions:

• It is a prerequisite that all Convergence Environments include at least three three/four year recruitment positions, PhD or PostDoc. The positions must be hosted by at least two different units at level 2 in the UiO organization. Only new recruitment positions are counted here, i.e. you may not count funding of man-years for permanently employed researchers at UiO within the compulsory 3 recruitment positions. Similarly, no positions already financed from the RCN or EU through other projects will count towards this requirement. On the other hand, if relevant, new recruitment positions funded by external sources (public or private) may count among the 3 compulsory positions.

• The UiO:Energy and Environment funds may be used to finance running of the project (see full cal) and recruitment positions. Each project will be awarded financing for one recruitment position from UiO:Energy and Environment. In addition, the project may use up to 4.5 of the 5 MNOK provided by UiO:Energy and Environment to fund /cofund recruitment positions. 
• The remaining positions may be financed as own funding from the relevant participating units. If funding is secured, please specify this in the application. If funding is not secured, UiO:Energy and Environment will strive to assist the applicant in securing the necessary recruitment positions to run the project from relevant participating units at UiO, otherwise UiO:Energy and Environment will fund up to three positions. If this is the case for all awarded projects, fewer Convergence Environments will be awarded.
• Only new recruitment positions are counted (you may not count funding of man-years/months for permanently employed researchers at UiO within the compulsory 3-5 recruitment positions). For more information, see Questions and answers below.

Funding and organization

Each Convergence Environment will receive funding over a period of up to 5 years and shall include 3-5 recruitment positions. UiO:Energy and Environment will fund each Convergence Environment with up to 5 MNOK and (at least) one recruitment position. Each Convergence Environment must finance at least three recruitment positions. In addition to the positions funded by UiO:Energy and Enviroment, each Environment is strongly encouraged to secure additional funding for recruitment positions from the participating units (faculties/departments/centres/museums), but this is not compulsory. See also information about recruitment positions under information about sketches above.

The involved departments/centres are expected to support the development of the Convergence Environments, and they should be in line with the participating parties¡¯ internal priorities and strategy. One department/centre must be the formal host for each Convergence Environment. UiO:Energy and Environment aims at providing premises where collaborative parties can meet regularly to assess progress and future development, though such a space may also be provided by one of the participating units.

Funding and recruitment position from UiO:Energy and Environment in combination with recruitment positions from participating units may be used to the following strategic activities:

• Clusters of recruitment positions: PhD or PostDocs (3-5) ¨C please specify number of positions, relevant disciplines, level and timeline.
  • The PhD/PostDoc candidates will be employed by the most relevant unit and attend their respective PhD programs
  • The positions funded by UiO:Energy an Environment can have a fourth year for to be used strategically by the Convergence Environment in collaboration with UiO:Energy and Environment. The applicants should propose relevant activities for this fourth year (such as for example teaching, outreach or innovation activities). If appropriate, the fourth year may also be used by a unit who then needs to finance this year as part of their own contribution
• Adjunct positions
• Activities related to promoting internal and external collaborations such as
  • Seminar series
  • Workshops
  • Interdisciplinary educational activities, for development of new courses (see also our call for seed funding for development of courses)
  • Public debates
  • Exchange/visits to/from external research partners
• General managerial costs

Questions and answers

Regarding financing of permanent positions (frikj?p)

Generally, we do not encourage financing of permanent staff from our funding. It is however possible to use some of the funds to finance permanent staff, including permanent reserachers, given the following conditions:

• At least 3 recruitment positions are required for each project.
  • If only one of these are funded through the cash contribution from UiO:Energy and Environment, you may only use up to a maximum of 1 MNOK to fund permanent researchers.
  • If 3 or more recruitment positions are secured in addition to the cash contribution, then the cash can be used more flexibly, and you may use up to a maximum of 3 MNOK to fund permanent researcher(s).

If the latter is relevant, please develop the budget in close dialogue with UiO:Energy and Environment. In general, we ask the applicants to keep financing (frikj?p) of permanent staff to a minimum.

Regarding expenses covered/financing of recruitment positions

• The detailed budgeting should use the numbers in the table below for recruitment positions. This cover salary and social costs and some general costs related to e.g. workspace, but does not include full overhead as these funds are internal UiO funding (part of the basis governmental funding). You may include overhead in the own contribution if relevant. In addition, you may add running expenses:
  • Up to 200 000 per year for costly experimental work
  • Up to 50 000 per year for theoretical positions

• Regarding budgeting of use of research infrastructure

• Use general guidelines regarding budgeting for use of research infrastructure (leiested). This also includes the use of high-performance computing.

Review process

The full application should adhere to all the requirements listed above. Each proposal shall be evaluated by experts proposed by the applicants (to be appointed in spring 2025). Each expert will write an individual evaluation report, that will be compiled into a common evaluation feedback report for each application. The applicants will be invited to write a short answer to the feedback report. The template for the evaluators is found below.

The applications, the individual expert reports, and the feedback reports will be given to the UiO:Energy and Environment board. The board may invite a selection of applicants to present their research projects to a panel composed of members of UiO:Energy and Environment board ¨C supplemented by other relevant scientists if needed.

Assessment criteria for experts and review panel:

The evaluation of the full applications has four main components:

1. Relevance to UiO:Energy and Environment. To what extent does the proposal answer to the UiO:Energy and Environment main research areas and/or cross-cutting themes?
2. Academic quality and originality (9-10 excellent; 7-8 very good; 5-6 good; 1-4 not satisfactory for funding). Suggested assessment criteria
   • To what extent is the proposed research ambitious with a potential to achieve groundbreaking results and novel knowledge?
   • To what extent does the proposed research address important research challenges and are the objectives beyond the current state-of-the-art (e.g. novel concepts and approaches, development of novel methodology and development across disciplines)?
3. Feasibility of the proposed Convergence Environment (9-10 excellent approach, timeline, resource allocation, team and organisation; 7-8 very good feasibility; 5-6 good feasibility ¨C but some areas of improvement, please comment if possible; 1-4 insufficient feasibility). Suggested assessment criteria
   • Are the outlined scientific approaches feasible and the proposed research methodologies appropriate to achieve the described goals?
   • Is the proposed timeline realistic?
   • Is the proposed use of resources sufficient, appropriate, and well justified?
   • To what extent is the track record of the project leader/s and team characterized by the ability to conduct this Convergence Environment and achieve the ambitions described under point 1?
   • To what extent does the project contribute to recruitment, education and development of young researchers within a cross-disciplinary environment of high quality?
4. Added value of the proposed Convergence Environment including societal relevance (9-10 excellent scientific and societal relevance ¨C to the research field, UiO and the society at large; 7-8 very good relevance; 5-6 good relevance, but some areas have room for improvement; 1-4 insufficient relevance). Suggested assessment criteria
5. • To what extent does the Convergence Environment address a societal challenge that requires an interdisciplinary approach, and to what extent is successful accomplishment of the main research objectives dependent on the described research collaboration?
   • To what extent does the Convergence Environment explore the possibilities for increased collaboration across faculties/departments/centres at UiO?
   • How and to what extent will relevant stakeholders and international partners be involved in the Convergence Environment?
   • Are there plans for attracting additional external funding?