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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.

Start Package Grants – For faculty recruitment Q1 2026

The primary purpose of the Start Package grant is to make Danish universities or other research institutions more competitive when recruiting top researchers of any nationality. The aim is also to enhance researcher mobility across borders, among Danish universities and from industry to university. The 4-year grant is intended to provide leverage for the hiring Danish university/research institution during recruitment and contract negotiations. A Start Package Grant will provide the host institution with funding that must be used in connection with the candidate's establishment of an independent research group at the host institution. The grant supports recruitment of researchers within medical sciences, life sciences, sustainability, or natural and technical sciences in fields that are in alignment with the Foundation's 2030 Strategy. This includes areas such as preventing and managing cardiometabolic diseases, decreasing the burden of infectious diseases, advancing regenerative medicine, reducing health inequity, sustainable agriculture, sustainable food for healthy diets, high-impact climate change mitigation technologies, supporting society in the green transition, and fundamental research with potential application within health or sustainability.