Of the 171 network applications received, a notable 68 per cent have female project leaders. Thirty per cent of the networks have male project leaders, and 1.2 per cent have leaders of another gender.
The geographical distribution of project owners is relatively even across the Nordic countries: 20 per cent are based in Denmark, 26 per cent in Finland, 25 per cent in Norway, 27 per cent in Sweden, and 2.3 per cent in Iceland.
The intention is to fund 22 networks under this call, and the total available budget is 33 million NOK. The funding decision will be announced at the end of this year.
The NOS-HS exploratory network call is an open call for bottom-up, curiosity-driven research networks within the humanities and social sciences in the Nordic region. The call focuses on early-career researchers, and a central aim is to encourage the next generation of Nordic scholars to build new or stronger cross-border research partnerships, thereby strengthening the quality, innovative character, international competitiveness, and societal impact of Nordic research.
New evaluation process
In this call all applicants are automatically also reviewers as we, for the first time in NordForsk's history, are implementing a distributed peer review system (DPR). All applicants have been invited to a webinar with more information about the reviewing process on 22 April.
"We see the strong response to this call as a clear signal about the vitality of the humanities and social sciences in the Nordic region and about the need to invest further in these fields. Supporting early-career researchers is a key priority for us, and with this call we want to provide an opportunity for early-career researchers to build and lead Nordic networks, support novelty and creativity in research network activities. We are also very curious to see how distributed peer review works in practice, marking a new step in how we evaluate research," says Sampsa Kataja, special adviser at NordForsk.
Funding
The call is funded through the Joint Committee for Nordic research councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS), which is a co-operation between the research councils in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden responsible for research within the humanities and social sciences.
The NOS-HS initiative operates under the auspices of NordForsk.
