Take a look at the Tandem and Synergy programmes – but please read the instructions carefully before you press send! That is one piece of advice to Health researchers from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, which in principle can provide support for almost all research areas within the health sciences, natural sciences and technical sciences.

2018.12.12 | Nanna Jespersgård

"We’re increasingly encouraging researchers who apply to the Novo Nordisk Foundation to work together across disciplines on joint questions and shared goals. But when health science researchers apply for funding via either our Tandem or Synergy programmes, in practice they have difficulty with the joint aspect. And that means a rejection.”

Niels-Henrik von Holstein Rathlou, Head of Research and Innovation Grants at the Novo Nordisk Foundation, does not pull his punches when summing up the do’s and dont’s for Health researchers applying for something other than the classical individual research projects in the areas of endocrinology and metabolism research, clinical and translational research and life sciences and basic biomedical research.

This is because the Novo Nordisk Foundation is presently working to promote increased and closer collaboration across disciplines and research areas. To do this, they have introduced grant types such as Tandem and Synergy, which are tailor-made for Health, but which also have led to the foundation's independent assessment committees receiving too many applications based on a misunderstood ‘pseudo' understanding of the concept of ‘joint’.

"When applying to our Tandem grant, it’s crucial that a clinician and a researcher in basic science actually work together on a joint well-defined task, and that’s just what you do at Health. But in practice, the Tandem applications often fail because they are really applying for funding for two projects. That is, one project for researcher A and another for researcher B," says Niels-Henrik von Holstein Rathlou.

The overall purpose of the Tandem programme is to bring clinical and laboratory research closer to each other with the goal being a better understanding of underlying disease mechanisms and of course better treatment and diagnosis of patients.

Only one research question!

In the Synergy programme or, more precisely, the Novo Nordisk Foundation Interdisciplinary Synergy Programme, applicants address research questions that cannot be answered using a traditional subject-specific approach.

Here, up to four research groups must work closely on an innovative, risk-heavy and interdisciplinary research project with a biomedical and/or biotechnological objective. With this programme, the Novo Nordisk Foundation wishes to promote a culture that utilises important scientific synergy – often under headings such as 'high risk - high gain'. However, here again, many parallel projects are rejected.

"The idea is for the groups to establish a close collaboration across disciplines based on a desire to find answers to a joint – and not four more or less related – research questions. However, here we also see applications for funding for what look like individual projects, and that’s a waste of time. Because that is not what we provide support for,” says Niels-Henrik von Holstein Rathlou.

Make use of the foundation's contact persons

Another and perhaps related problem is that applications to the Novo Nordisk Foundation are too often characterised by the researcher not having read the instructions for the call for applications or bothering to contact the foundation's employees with any queries.

This is reflected in examples such as a researcher applying for DKK 200,000 or DKK four million from a type of grant where the amount available ranges from DKK 300,000 and up to DKK three million.

"We constantly see that researchers have not properly understood the requirements," says Niels-Henrik von Holstein Rathlou, before urging researchers to make use of the contact persons that the Novo Nordisk Foundation makes available for all types of calls for applications.

“The point is that the details matter. It’s also that you present a research project that generally lives up to what we demand. That’s to say, an original project from an applicant with a good track record that is accompanied by a realistic budget,” he says.

Money for education?

The Novo Nordisk Foundation has recently enjoyed the luxury of a strong increase in revenue. The foundation therefore plans to increase its grant payments significantly and has set itself the goal of disbursing four per cent of the foundation’s unrestricted capital annually – which is to say approx. DKK 85 billion in 2018.

For this reason, the Novo Nordisk Foundation has initiated new activities within the framework of the 'will of the founder'. Among many other things, this has led to an intensified focus on learning and children and young people's interest in technical and natural sciences in the Danish primary and lower secondary schools, for example via the Novo Nordisk LIFE learning initiative which has Christine Antorini as its CEO. And this is only the beginning.

"The ambition is that over the course of the next few years, the Novo Nordisk Foundation will come to support teaching and development not just in primary and lower secondary school, were we’ve already begun, but also at the universities and other institutions of higher education. This could be in the form of necessary work with new pedagogical approaches and methods," says Niels-Henrik von Holstein Rathlou.

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Contact:           

Niels-Henrik von Holstein Rathlou
Head of Research and Innovation Grants at the Novo Nordisk Foundation
Tel.: (+45) 3527 6630 (direct)
Email: nhhr@novo.dk