Novo Nordisk Foundation Challenge Call 2025: Harnessing biology for climate-resilient and healthy soils
Interested in learning more? Sign up for the informational webinar before May 28, 2025.
What is the NNF Challenge Programme?
The Novo Nordisk Foundation Challenge Programme is the Foundation’s largest open competition grant programme and supports ambitious research projects that focus on creating new knowledge on major global challenges based on annually selected themes.
The Challenge Programme aims to contribute substantially to the development of Danish and European research ecosystems within research areas of strategic priority to the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The goal is to develop innovative solutions to major scientific challenges, supporting leading researchers to form a consortium united by a clear vision and mission. The Programme provides funding to enable scientific depth and focus and facilitate synergy between the research partners.
The four themes for the 2026 edition are:
- Harnessing biology for climate-resilient and healthy soils
- Unravelling the pathways of human invasive fungal diseases
- Modelling human cardiometabolic disease
- Biological systems under non-equilibrium conditions
Harnessing biology for climate-resilient and healthy soils
The challenge is to prevent further soil degradation and enable the regeneration of healthy soils as a vital natural resource by deepening our fundamental understanding of how biological factors influence and interact with physiochemical and other properties of soil. You can read the press release [here] and more about the specific call [here].
NNF encourages interdisciplinary projects with a clear focus on soil health. Grants can be up to 6 years and DKK 75 million (approx. EUR 10 million). The application deadline is 8 October 2025.
If you are interested in additional information, we encourage you to participate in the following opportunity: An online webinar / information session on Tuesday, 3 June 2025 at 14:30-15:30 (CET).
You can sign up for the informational webinar before May 28, 2025, here.
We hope you and/or your colleagues will apply to this unique call for applications.
If you have any questions regarding the call, please reach out to Grant Manager Beatriz Domínguez Guerrero (bdm@novo.dk) or Senior Scientific Manager Jeremy A. Daniel (jad@novo.dk).
