Strategic priorities for the Danish National Research Foundation, 2026–2030
The Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF) promotes Denmark’s research capacity by funding excellent, curiosity‑driven research at the highest international level. The foundation supports environments where scientific creativity, foresight, and collaborative team efforts can push the boundaries of knowledge.
To fulfil its mandate, the DNRF maintains relevant and distinct funding schemes, ensures transparent assessment procedures, and performs oversight that benefits both grantees and the foundation. The DNRF values close, trust‑based dialogue with the research communities it serves.
Strategic priorities for 2026–2030
Advancing scientific excellence
An effective Danish research funding system must offer opportunities across fields, career stages, and the full research‑innovation spectrum. Clear roles and coordination among public and private grant-making organizations are essential to maintaining such a system.
The DNRF will continue to provide flexible, largescale, long‑term funding through primarily the Centers of Excellence instrument and will seek to strengthen coordination with public funders and private foundations.
Specifically, the DNRF will:
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From the 13th round onwards, the DNRF will increase the maximum budget size of Centers of Excellence and will introduce a continuous budget scale, ensuring that proposals receive the necessary support without encouraging inflated budgets. Applicants are expected to submit conscientiously crafted budgets that reflect the actual needs of planned research.
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The Centers of Excellence instrument will remain open to proposals from all scientific fields, including from interdisciplinary teams and approaches. The DNRF will increase efforts to encourage applications from underrepresented fields and will collaborate with universities to encourage broader participation.
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Scientific excellence remains the core foundation for funding decisions. To facilitate societal value creation from foundational research advances in Centers of Excellence, the DNRF will strengthen its links to other organizations in the research and innovation ecosystem, including by seeking collaboration with Innovation Fund Denmark.
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The growing importance of private foundations in Denmark’s research landscape requires ongoing attention to roles and coordination. The DNRF will enhance outreach to major private foundations to explore collaborative opportunities and facilitate coherence across the system. A systematic evaluation of the co‑funded Pioneer Center scheme will be conducted together with the participating private foundations.
Supporting talent and teams
Team composition and dynamics are essential for achieving groundbreaking research outcomes and developing future generations of scientists. Strong research environments and well‑functioning teams are essential for maintaining Denmark’s long‑term scientific competitiveness.
The DNRF will continue to allocate substantial resources to salaries and support for early‑career researchers within Centers of Excellence and will enable research environments that stimulate their scientific and career development. The foundation also aims to support promising researchers transitioning into independent leadership roles.
Specifically, the DNRF will:
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A new scheme will be developed to support particularly promising researchers assuming independent leadership roles. Designed based on analyses of national and international funding landscapes, it will enable emerging scientific leaders to build or consolidate their teams and to seize opportunities for breakthroughs at decisive career moments.
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Centers of Excellence operate as laboratories for team‑based research. Effective collaboration within core groups and a clear distribution of supervisory and leadership responsibilities among senior researchers are vital for success. These aspects will receive increased attention in application assessments, mid‑term evaluations, and ongoing follow‑up activities.
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Many early‑career researchers lack access to structured mentoring and career guidance. The DNRF will collaborate with funded research environments to identify and disseminate effective models for supporting career development within and beyond academia.
Promoting responsible assessment
Responsible assessment practices that recognize a broad spectrum of scientific contributions are increasingly important. As a steward of public funds, the DNRF remains committed to strengthening assessment and monitoring based on transparency, sound criteria, and close dialogue with funded environments.
As a signatory to the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, the DNRF will continue to develop assessment models that reflect responsible principles and support robust and fair decision‑making.
Specifically, the DNRF will:
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The foundation will revise its CV template to recognize a broader range of competencies to advance the identification of promising leaders and teams.
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To further strengthen the identification of proposals with strong breakthrough potential, including those outside board members’ immediate expertise, the DNRF will explore ways to enrich pre‑proposal assessment, such as involving peer advisors.
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A refined continuous monitoring model will be introduced, assigning a consistent lead board member with relevant scientific expertise to participate in annual onsite follow‑up meetings with Centers of Excellence.