logo Helse Vest

Call for proposals 2025

Helse Vest's research funding is to contribute to research activity in the health trusts in the region. The deadline for applying for funds is September 15th, 2024, time 23:59. Granting of the research funds will be decided at the Liaison Committee's (Samarbeidsorganet) meeting on the 28th of November 2024.

Page in Norwegian

Research funds are to be an incentive as well as an economic contribution to produce more high quality research, and to build research expertise through awarding PhD and postdoctoral fellowships. 

The Regional Liaison Committee (Det regionale samarbeidsorganet) between Western Norway Regional Health Authority, University of Bergen, University of Stavanger and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, which decides the distribution of research funds, encourages regional cooperation in the research projects.

Aims and criteria describe who can apply for research funds from Helse Vest. For more information about who can apply, including access to this year’s Agreement of support form, please see the information under Who can apply for research funding.

The following application categories are active in the call for proposals 2025:

  • PhD Fellowships
  • Postdoctoral Fellowships 
  • Clinical Researcher Fellowships
  • Clinical Career Fellowships​
  • Open Project Support
  • Overseas Fellowships​
  • Scholarships for Clinical Studies

Guidelines for all application categories have been prepared. Applicants need to review the requirements and the advice that these guidelines provide. 

Please make a note of the following:

  • The applicant must be employed (min. 20%) by a health trust in the region or by a private, non-profit institution that has an agreement with Helse Vest. If the employment requirement is not met, people can still apply if an agreement of support with a health trust or a private, non-profit institution is attached, please see Who can apply for research funding for more information. For the categories Clinical Researcher Fellowships and Clinical Career Fellowships separate requirements apply.
  • The scholarship rate is to cover salary with social expenses and running costs. Need for running cost beyond what is included in the scholarship rate,  must be met from other sources.

  • The category "Short-term Project" has been removed.
  • A new application category "Scholarship for Clinical Studies (20 percent)" has been established. The goal of this category is to strengthen the recruitment of healthcare personnel with a completed Ph.D. degree into research. Additionally, in the long term, the scholarship can be a tool to achieve the goals in the National Action Plan for Clinical Studies. In this call, up to five scholarships will be awarded. Specific guidelines have been developed for this application category; see guidelines for all application categories.
  • The period for postdoctoral scholarships has been changed from 2.5 years to 3 years for a 100 percent position. The scholarship can still be taken at 50 percent and can be extended by six or twelve months for an overseas stay.
  • Open Project Support has been increased to five million over three years.

According to the Norwegian "helseforetakslova" § 35, it is mandatory to have user involvement in research projects in the hospital. User involvement in research is to provide added value to research, by involving the users in one or several parts of the project. All applicants are to explain any user involvement in the project or why this is not applicable. Find out more about this in the template for project description. Lack of user involvement or lack of description of why user participation is not relevant, will reduce the assessment of the application.

Researchers who are granted Helse Vest research funding, must have completed a digital course in user involvement​, and a yearly report on user invovlement will be requiered. 

Applications that do not meet the formal criteria and requirements will be set aside, see list of common reasons for not being shortlisted.

Required attachments

Two attachments are to be uploaded with the online application:

  1. Project description: A template for the project description has been prepared. Please note that all the main headings in the template are compulsory, while some of the subheadings give guidance and are not always relevant for all projects/application types.
  2. Other attachments (which attachments are required depend on the application category; please see the guidelines in the form).

CV and list of publications are part of “Other attachments”.  Please note that the CV should preferably not exceed two pages, see also suggested CV template.

Applications to Helse Vest are evaluated for scientific quality and the project's benefit to patients and impact on patient care. These two criteria are equal, in that meaning that neither high benefit/impact nor high quality alone is sufficient to receive funding. Read more about the evaluation criteria in Aims and criteria.

Collaboration between institutions in different parts of the region will be emphasized in applications for open project support.

Applications for the Scholarship for Clinical Studies (20 percent) will be evaluated based on regional participation in the projects the scholarship is intended to support and the benefit to the department during and after the scholarship period; see the guidelines for the application category. Provided that the applications otherwise meet the criteria, both the academic and geographical distribution of the scholarships will be considered.


Granting of the research funds will be decided at the Liaison Committee's (Samarbeidsorganet) meeting on the 28th of November 2024​. The results will be announced on the Liaison Committee's website as soon as possible after the meeting.

Please contact the Regional Centre for Clinical Research if you have any questions.


Note: In case of discrepancies between the Norwegian and English version of announcement and guidelines, the Norwegian version is the legally binding version.​

Last updated 6/19/2024