About
Novo Nordisk Fonden is an independent Danish commercial foundation that supports scientific, humanitarian and social purposes. The foundation's vision is to promote human health and the sustainability of society and the planet. The foundation supports a wide range of projects and initiatives across three focus areas: health, sustainability, and the life science ecosystem. It provides both competitive grants and strategic initiatives, and distributes awards for scientific research and education.
Funding Opportunities
Project Grants in Clinical and Translational Medicine
The objective of this call is to broadly promote Danish clinical or translational research of high international level. The research should involve patients/humans and/or clinical practice, diagnostic or therapeutic methods, but can also involve established animal models. The Foundation provides grants to support research activities that must be anchored at a university, hospital or other non-profit research institution in Denmark. A total of up to DKK 76 million is available for projects lasting from 1-3 years, with individual grants of up to DKK 4,400,000 million and a yearly maximum budget of DKK 1,480,000 million. DKK 11 million are specifically earmarked for projects within the strategic focused theme 'Interactions between infectious diseases and cardiometabolic diseases', aimed at improving understanding of the dual-burden and interactions between infectious diseases and cardiometabolic diseases.
Investigator Initiated Clinical Trials
The Novo Nordisk Foundation provides grants to strengthen opportunities for conducting larger clinical trials in Denmark without commercial purpose. The ultimate objective is to improve patient treatment through new medicine and technology and ensure the highest quality in treatment. Grants support both monocentric and multicenter national trials. For multicenter international clinical trials, the coordinating investigator and trial must be anchored at a Danish hospital. Clinical trials must conform to good clinical practice guidelines (GCP), demonstrate clinical relevance and scientific quality, and include detailed protocols with power calculations, data management plans, and statistical analysis plans. Randomized controlled trials are preferred, though nonrandomized trials are also accepted. All funded trials must be registered at ClinicalTrials.gov or the Clinical Trials Information System (CTIS), and anonymized data must be made publicly available upon completion.
Novonesis Biotechnology Prize
The Novonesis Biotechnology Prize is awarded annually to recognize outstanding European research or technology achievements that contribute to the development of innovative and sustainable biotechnology solutions for the benefit of people and the planet. The Prize raises awareness of basic and applied biotechnology research in areas such as biomanufacturing, industrial, environmental, food, or plant biotechnology. The Prize consists of a funding amount for the awardee's research (DKK 4.5 million), a personal award (DKK 0.5 million), and an international symposium within the awardee's field of research. The award is made through a nomination process by a prize committee after a confidential review of nominees who have made important contributions to European Science with a current position and active research program at a public or non-profit research institution in Europe.
Steno Collaborative Grants
The Steno Collaborative Grants are designed to strengthen collaboration between the Steno Diabetes Centers and research environments related to the Centers. The Novo Nordisk Foundation supports research projects with a unifying and collaborative mission to develop knowledge, exchange experience across research institutions, and facilitate synergy between research environments around the Steno Diabetes Centers. The grants aim to strengthen clinical, patient-centered, and collaborative research between the Steno Diabetes Centers and research environments outside the Centers, while positioning Denmark at an international level in improving prevention and care for persons with diabetes or at risk of diabetes. Projects must be collaborative with a unifying vision focused on solving challenges within clinical diabetes research, comprising a main applicant and two to five co-applicants from Steno Diabetes Centers or partner institutions. International collaboration is strongly encouraged.
Infectious Diseases Catalyst Grants
The Infectious Diseases Catalyst Grants programme provides catalytic funding for exploratory research projects within three thematic research areas: pathogenic fungi, novel antimicrobial resistance (AMR) tools, and harnessing innate immunity. The aim is to stimulate Danish research, strengthen international collaborations, and initiate innovative research projects with exceptional potential for future direct impact on global challenges. Research projects must be use-inspired, enhancing fundamental knowledge while including considerations of potential application or translation of knowledge gained towards generating better and needed tools. Projects must have clear aims and articulate expected outcomes and potential future impact. For pathogenic fungi, research should focus on developing prevention, diagnostic and treatment tools for invasive fungal infections and antifungal resistance. For novel AMR tools, projects should investigate rationally designed and novel approaches to prevent, diagnose or treat antimicrobial resistant bacterial infections. For harnessing innate immunity, projects should develop innovative tools to induce innate immunity and broadly counteract respiratory infections.
PREPARE – Grants for educational developments at universities 2026
The PREPARE program aims to enhance and expand methods for training students' creative and critical skills through science or engineering research activities at universities within the Danish Realm. The program focuses on disciplines within natural, technical and health science educations that align with the strategic key themes of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The grants provide science and engineering teachers with resources to implement new educational ideas and better prepare students to solve complex societal problems. The program supports three categories: digital development of educations, research infrastructure development for educations, and upgrade content of educations. The primary target group consists of bachelor and master students within natural, technical and health science educations at universities in the Danish Realm.
Lundbeck Foundation and Novo Nordisk Foundation Body-Brain Interdisciplinary Projects
The Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Lundbeck Foundation have a shared interest in supporting research that deepens our understanding of the interactions between the brain and periphery in health and disease. This initiative aims to enhance the mechanistic understanding of body-brain interactions in health and disease, particularly focusing on cardiometabolic diseases (CMDs) and nervous system disorders (NSDs). The program fosters European collaborative and interdisciplinary research projects with a significant focus on scientific excellence. Strong projects will be of a collaborative nature, bridging different research disciplines such as neuroscience, metabolism, endocrinology, physiology, neurology, psychiatry, medicine, epidemiology, immunology, and nutrition, with a unifying aim of improving mechanistic understanding of body-brain interactions in health and/or disease while addressing specific knowledge gaps. By addressing critical knowledge gaps, this programme is expected to lead to novel discoveries ultimately improving diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and understanding of these interconnected health issues.
Female Heart – Clinical Mechanistic Grants
The Female Heart – Mechanistic Research Grants aims to enhance understanding of the mechanistic drivers of sex-related differences in cardiovascular disease by fostering European collaborative research projects anchored in the Nordic countries. The program funds mechanistic or translational research that seeks to enhance mechanistic understanding of sex-related differences in cardiovascular disease. Research areas include investigating how age and life-phase affect cardiovascular disease development, long-term effects of disease drivers and treatments on cardiovascular function, endothelial function impairment in women, non-obstructive coronary artery disease presentation in women, and causative feedback loops between cardiovascular disease and sex-specific comorbidities. The research project must involve international collaboration between institutions in different countries, with the main applicant based in a Nordic country and co-applicants in the European Economic Area, UK, or Switzerland. Sex-related differences in cardiovascular disease must be the core focus of the proposed research project and directly relate to the research hypothesis.
Female Heart – Clinical Research Grants
The Female Heart – Clinical Research Grants programme aims to enhance clinical understanding of sex-related differences in cardiovascular disease by fostering global collaborative research projects anchored in the Nordic countries. The programme funds research that seeks to improve early detection, clinical diagnosis, and treatment of cardiovascular disease in women, with particular attention to conditions with relatively higher female prevalence such as spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), myocardial infarction with non-obstructive coronary arteries (MINOCA), and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). The research must involve international collaboration with main applicants anchored at Nordic research institutions and co-applicants from institutions outside the main applicant's country. Projects should address sex-specific or sex-associated risk factors, including pregnancy-related cardiovascular complications, effects of female hormonal transitions, and social determinants of health that impact women's cardiovascular health experiences. Sex-related differences in cardiovascular disease must be the core focus of the proposed research project and directly relate to the research hypothesis.
Distinguished Innovator Grant
The Distinguished Innovator Grant (Sustainability & Health) is designed to accelerate commercialization of research findings and development of novel technologies within sustainability or health. The grant is aimed at senior faculty members or researchers with a proven track record within innovation, including previous experience of academic innovation projects and experience with establishing patents and spinouts from academia. The Sustainability area seeks to support innovative research within agriculture, food, industrial and environmental biotech, carbon capture, utilisation and storage technologies, nitrous oxide and methane emissions, and quantum technologies. The Health area seeks to support innovative research within med-tech, industrial biotech, pharma, and quantum technologies, with particular focus on cardiometabolic diseases as well as infectious diseases and preventive solutions. The projects must have a clear outlook to scaling potentials and later commercialization possibilities. The grant is pre-CVR, meaning it is intended to support projects before company establishment.
Pioneer Innovator Grant
The Pioneer Innovator Grant supports innovative research within two areas: Health and Sustainability. The Health track focuses on med-tech, industrial biotech, pharma, and quantum technologies, with particular emphasis on cardiometabolic diseases, infectious diseases, and preventive solutions. The Sustainability track supports agriculture, food, industrial and environmental biotech, carbon capture and storage, emissions reduction, and quantum technologies, with focus on sustainable agriculture, food for healthy diets, and climate change mitigation. Both tracks aim to accelerate the commercialization of research findings and development of novel technologies. The grant seeks to support novel academic science-based discoveries with commercial potential, stimulating the evaluation of ideas and supporting experiments leading to proof-of-concept or beyond. Projects must have clear outlook to scaling potentials and commercialization possibilities, and be directly linked to improving lives of patients and health of people or sustainability.
Data Science Collaborative Research Programme 2026
The Data Science Collaborative Research Programme aims to support synergistic research collaborations rooted in data science and computational science with immediate or potential future applications within areas of relevance to the Novo Nordisk Foundation's strategy. The programme seeks to foster research collaborations between data scientists and experts in other fields, including medicine, biology, biotechnology, physics, and chemistry. Research proposals should address the development of new algorithms, methods and technologies within data science, computational science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics, bioinformatics, and other computational sciences, and/or applications of these methods to areas relevant to life science, biomedical and health science, public and global health, infectious disease, sustainability, green transition, agriculture, and natural and technical sciences. The programme aims to support an excellent academic research and education ecosystem within data science in Denmark while advancing education and training courses in data science-related topics.
At a Glance
- Total Funding Opportunities
- 30
- Active Now
- 12
- Source Domain
- novonordiskfonden.dk
Catalog Data
This funder profile was automatically extracted from grant listings. Information may be incomplete.
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