The Nordic countries possess a unique source of knowledge in their population-based register and biobank data. In its fourth call for proposals, the Nordic Health and Welfare Programme – a collaboration between research funders in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – invites researchers to utilise these unique resources in research projects.

The call emphasises that the research should address societal challenges and use register data from combined data sources, i.e. both socio-economic and health-related data. Also user involvement and perspectives should be taken into account.

Another aim of this call is to monitor existing hurdles and bottlenecks (technical, organisational, legal, ethical, etc.) that impede Nordic collaborative research utilising register data, in keeping with NordForsk’s objective to strengthen Nordic register-based research.

The call is open for researchers at universities and other research institutions in the Nordic countries. A total of NOK 67 million is available for research projects within the call.

Applicants may seek up to NOK 10 million per project for a time frame of three to five years. Grant applications may be submitted until 5 October 2016 13:00 CET.

 

The Programme Committee specifically invites research proposals addressing:

  1. Health challenges related to working life (including sickness absence, disability pensions and retirement conditions).

  2. Prevention, quality of life and underlying causes of illness and health conditions in children and young people. Consideration should be given to the children’s families and social environment, including school.

  3. Research on conditions on which the individual countries do not have sufficient data, including rare diseases.

  4.  Research supporting personalised medicine.

  5.  Research applying a life-course perspective.

 

For more information, see the Call Announcement.