Who can apply

The main applicant and co-applicants hold a tenured position or a tenure track at a Dutch university or university of applied sciences, a university medical centre, a KNAW or NWO institute, the Netherlands Cancer Institute, the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Naturalis, ARCNL or the Princess Máxima Center. Lectors with a paid fixed-term appointment at a university of applied sciences may apply. Zero-hour and other temporary contracts are excluded, and postdocs cannot be applicants. When a tenure track or contract ends before the project, the employer guarantees supervision in a letter.

Co-applicants may also come from other Dutch research organisations (foundation, association or public law entity, mainly engaged in independent research or its dissemination, with separate accounts for economic activities and no preferential access for companies), and from foreign research organisations meeting equivalent conditions, after a review by NWO. Applied research (TO2) institutes cannot be applicants. For the full proposal, the documents for a new organisation review are due by 15 October 2026, 14:00 CET.

Consortium

• The main applicant and co-applicant(s) come from at least two different research organisations.
• The consortium includes at least one co-funder and at least one company (private for-profit party). Section 3.1.1 of the call text also mentions two or more co-funders; the formal conditions of section 3.4.1 require at least one.
• Organisations whose staff can be applicants cannot be co-funders.
• All consortium members play an active role in formulating the research questions and in designing and carrying out the research.
• A main applicant submits one proposal in that role and can be co-applicant in one other consortium; a co-applicant takes part in at most two consortia.

Formal conditions for the full proposal

• The main applicant submitted a pre-proposal that NWO considered.
• The applicants meet the conditions above, and the consortium has at least two research organisations, one co-funder and one company.
• The application complies with DORA, is written in English, is submitted through the main applicant's ISAAC account before the deadline.
• The project lasts at most 6 years.
• All required annexes and forms are complete; the budget uses the NWO format with the latest rates; the required co-funding is fully committed through co-funding declarations.

Two-stage procedure

Submitting a pre-proposal is compulsory: only a main applicant whose pre-proposal was considered by NWO can submit a full proposal. The pre-proposal stage closed on 10 March 2026; the full-proposal stage is the one now open.

Pre-proposal stage (closed)

1. Information session (19 September 2025, recommended, not mandatory).
2. Admissibility check. NWO may ask for administrative corrections within two weeks after the deadline: one opportunity, five working days.
3. KIA suitability assessment by a referee of the primary KIA, based on the KIA suitability assessment form.
4. Written response of at most one A4 page, within five working days, if the referee found the pre-proposal unsuitable.
5. Suitability decision by the NWO Executive Board on the committee's recommendation. A rejection at this step is final.
6. Assessment of suitable pre-proposals by the committee on the four criteria, without referees, ending in a non-binding positive or negative advice. At most twice the expected number of fundable proposals receive a positive advice.

A consortium that submits a full proposal despite a negative advice must report this to NWO by e-mail, through the main applicant, within four weeks after the advice.

Full-proposal stage

1. Admissibility check against the formal conditions (same correction rule as above).
2. Peer review by at least two independent external referees. Up to three non-referees can be registered in ISAAC at submission.
3. Rebuttal on the anonymised referee reports, within ten working days, via ISAAC.
4. Pre-advice: several committee members comment in writing and score each criterion on the NWO scale from 1 (excellent) to 9 (unsatisfactory), and list the points to clarify in the interview.
5. Interview selection, only if admissible proposals exceed three times the number that can be funded; then at most twice that number are invited.
6. Interview with the assessment committee. The interview can change the assessment and the score.
7. Committee meeting: final assessment, ranking and recommendation to the NWO Executive Board.
8. Decision by the NWO Executive Board.

Timetable

Applications are submitted through the main applicant's own ISAAC account. Some details are entered online at submission, so NWO asks applicants to start submitting at least one day before the deadline. Late applications are not considered. A research organisation missing from the ISAAC database must be reported to relatiebeheer@nwo.nl at least one week before the deadline. The whole procedure takes about 1.5 years from the pre-proposal; results arrive about 8 months after the full-proposal deadline.

KIA suitability (pre-proposal stage)

Is the theme and approach of the pre-proposal suitable for the stated primary KIA? Only suitable pre-proposals were assessed on content.

Criteria for the full proposal

1. Problem definition and analysis (25%)
   • Clear problem definition and resulting research questions, logically related and contributing to the objective of the call.
   • Societal and scientific urgency and relevance of the problem.
   • Interdisciplinary character of the problem definition and research questions clearly formulated, or convincingly argued as unnecessary.
2. Envisaged impact and route to impact (25%)
   • Scientific and societal impact clearly defined and following logically from the problem.
   • An Impact Pathway with a clear route to societal, including economic, impact and the role of the partners; if interdisciplinarity is not needed for the impact, this is convincingly argued.
   • Appropriate strategic activities: stakeholder engagement, communication, monitoring and evaluation, capacity development, deployment and use of Human Capital.
   • Attention to the key risks of undesirable societal impact and measures to prevent or mitigate them and increase the chance of desired impact.
3. Quality of the consortium (30%)
   • Composition fits the project: appropriate disciplines and relevant societal stakeholders.
   • Complementary knowledge, skills and expertise.
   • Active involvement of the partners in developing the project (co-design), from the problem definition and research questions, and in its execution (co-creation).
   • Clear division of tasks and roles for the research and for the governance.
4. Quality of the research (20%)
   • The scientific research question follows from the problem analysis and is original and innovative for the disciplines.
   • Approach and methodology suit the objectives and the research question.
   • Integrated character: an effective strategy to integrate the knowledge of researchers and partners.
   • Structure of the research plan: clear, coherent work packages; suitable, substantiated budget; risk analysis and, if needed, a back-up plan.

The pre-proposal was assessed on the same four criteria and weights, with lighter sub-aspects. For foreign co-applicants, the substantiation of their specific expertise is assessed under Quality of the research.

Scoring and thresholds

Each criterion is scored on the NWO scale from 1 (excellent) to 9 (unsatisfactory). To be eligible for funding, a proposal needs an overall qualification of at least very good and a score of 4.0 or better on every criterion.

The committee is external and independent, with representatives from research and society. Referee reports largely guide it but are not followed blindly; it weighs the rebuttal and compares all proposals. Ex aequo at the funding line (scores within 0.10): the lowest sum of the scores for criteria 1 and 2 ranks highest, then an anonymous majority vote of the committee, then the NWO Executive Board.

The data management section is not evaluated. Under DORA, assessors do not use the Journal Impact Factor or the h-index, and applicants may not mention them.

Grant and envelope

Available budget: €14,000,000. NWO funding per project: at least €1,400,000 and at most €7,000,000. NWO funds at most 70% and never less than 50% of the total project budget; the rest comes from compulsory co-funding. With 30% co-funding, the total project budget is between €2 million and €10 million.

Co-funding rules

• At least 30% of the total project budget comes from parties that cannot be applicants.
• At least half of the co-funding is private (at least 15% of the total budget), and at least half of the private co-funding is in cash (25% of the total co-funding, at least 7.5% of the total budget). Example: for a €7,000,000 project with 30% co-funding, at least €525,000 private cash and at most €1,575,000 in kind.
• The remaining 15% can be cash or in kind, private or public, as long as project-specific costs (staff, materials) are fully funded and the budget balances.
• A proposal whose co-funding exceeds 50% of the total project costs is not considered.
• In-kind contributions must be integral to the project and identifiable; services and know-how already available at the research organisations do not count. Personnel in kind is valued at the hourly rates of the Government Tariffs Manual (HOT).
• Cash co-funding is invoiced by the applicant; if VAT is applicable to the co-funding contribution, it is added to the contributed amount and pays project costs; a private partner's cash cannot pay its own R&D in the project or buy goods or services from it. Co-funders receive no funding from NWO.
• Not eligible as co-funding: NWO grants, contributions from parties that can apply, and costs of overhead, guidance, consultancy or user committee participation.
• Private contribution: cash or in kind that does not come directly or indirectly from a research organisation or public body (definition of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency).

Budget modules

• Personnel: PhD student (48 months, 1.0 FTE or equivalent), Engineering Doctorate (up to 24 months, only alongside a PhD or postdoc), postdoc, physician-researcher (36 to 48 months), non-scientific personnel, research leave of the applicants (at most 5% of the grant). Personnel of universities of applied sciences and other organisations at HOT rates. Students as material costs. Scientific personnel at foreign research organisations: at most 50% of the personnel budget, UNL rates with country coefficients.
• Material: project-specific costs, at most 25% of the NWO grant; up to half of the material budget for third-party work. Travel at economy fares; Open Access fees for fully Open Access journals only.
• Investments: equipment, infrastructure, datasets; at most €500,000; only depreciation over the project; only at the eligible research organisations.
• Knowledge utilisation: mandatory, at least 5% and at most 20% of the grant, for activities that fit the EU definition of knowledge transfer activities: knowledge platforms and joint learning, stakeholder involvement, communication, skills development beyond individual researchers, monitoring and evaluation of knowledge utilisation.
• Project management: optional, at most 5% of the grant, personnel at most €121 per hour; cannot fund the applicants' own management work.

What the proposal must justify

• The use of non-scientific personnel (NWP) must be described in the proposal.
• For research leave, the proposal must describe what project-related work the applicant(s) will perform during the exempted time.
• Investment costs should be adequately specified and justified; profits from the beneficial ownership of research resources must be reinvested in the beneficiary's primary activities.
• The knowledge utilisation budget should be adequately specified.
• The applicant must satisfactorily justify the project management budget.

Personnel rates are indexed once at the award; the grant ceiling and the co-funding ratio do not change.

• Finding partners: NWO's Innovation Desk supports public-private partnerships in finding collaboration partners. NWO runs no matchmaking for this instrument; universities and regional development agencies can also help.
• KIA representatives: applicants unsure about the fit with a KIA can consult its representatives (via the KIA websites, or via kic-consortia@nwo.nl for a referral).
• Foreign research organisations can be co-applicants after an eligibility review. Their specific expertise, not available in the Netherlands at the required level, must be substantiated, unless NWO has a Money Follows Cooperation agreement with the research funder of their country. At most 50% of the personnel budget can go to personnel abroad.
• Applied research (TO2) institutes cannot receive funding as applicants but are welcome as co-funders or cooperation partners.
• Foreign companies can be co-funders under the same conditions as Dutch companies.
• Dissemination expertise is the consortium's shared responsibility; an organisation with such expertise can join as cooperation partner or as a third party paid from the material, knowledge utilisation or project management modules.
• Longer term: XL consortia are expected to grow into long-term public-private partnerships and later join long-term strategic programmes such as KIC LTP, or major national and European programmes. Earlier Demand-driven Partnership participants may apply again, but NWO does not fund activities already funded by NWO or other sources.

No imposed project structure

The call imposes no work packages, deliverables or milestones. Section 5.1 of the form describes the overall research plan and its work packages: the research activities of each work package, the partners involved, the requested budget, how each work package contributes to the Impact Pathway, and how the work packages interact and together deliver the impact.

The form suggests a format per work package, which is not mandatory: WP number and title; duration (not beyond the project duration); WP leader (name, title, initials and research institute); WP personnel (PhDs, postdocs, other temporary scientific personnel, non-scientific personnel, industrial or societal doctorates, EngD trainees); participating consortium partners; and a table of the requested WP budget, one row per cost item, including in-kind contributions, consistent with the budget form, followed by a motivation of at most 150 words.

• 5.2 Planning: a Gantt chart of the project, with the timeline of each work package and of the requested personnel.
• 5.3 Risk management and contingency plan: societal, scientific and financial risks, the risks created by false assumptions in the problem analysis, and an alternative plan.
• 4.3 Project governance and project management: who manages the project, the communication structures between partners, how progress is monitored, when and how monitoring and evaluation take place and how they can lead to adjustments of the Impact Pathway, and how the user committee is involved.

Project duration

At most 6 years (72 months). There is no formal minimum; the committee checks that duration and budget are realistic and well motivated.

After the award

The main applicant installs a user committee in which all applicants, co-funders, cooperation partners and relevant stakeholders are represented; it meets at least once a year with an NWO staff member. A consortium agreement based on the NWO model must be concluded and uploaded in ISAAC before the project starts.

The NWO intellectual property policy applies (chapter 4 of the NWO Grant Rules 2024). Applicants carry out the project while employed by their research organisation; another employer must relinquish its IP rights from the project. NWO aims for all results to be publicly accessible while letting partners exploit them, which can mean transferring or licensing IP to the private partners. All results can be published, subject to the agreed publication procedure. The consortium agreement, based on the NWO model for calls opened after 2 September 2024, settles IP and publication: partners can choose NWO's standard text or their own arrangements. Licensing or transfer of results should follow the ten principles for socially responsible licensing of the NFU.

• Ethics: the applicant determines whether an ethical statement or licence is needed and obtains it on time. Its absence at application does not affect the assessment, but a copy must reach NWO after the award and before the part of the project that needs it starts. Section 7 of the form records the status of approvals from a (medical) ethics review committee, an animal experiments committee and under the Population Screening Act.
• Research integrity: the project follows the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (2018); NWO must be informed at once of any possible violation.
• Knowledge security: applicants ensure the project complies, and will keep complying, with the National Knowledge Security Guidelines. NWO may ask for a risk assessment, and a breach can affect the award or add conditions.
• Nagoya Protocol: researchers using genetic resources take the steps required for access and benefit sharing.
• Confidentiality: the proposal is confidential; everyone involved in the assessment follows the NWO Code for Dealing with Personal Interests, and applicant data are processed under the NWO Privacy Statement.

Data management

NWO expects research data to be publicly available for reuse as far as possible: as open as possible, as closed as necessary. At the least, the data underlying published conclusions are made available when the work is published. Section 6 of the proposal (at most one page) explains how data will be handled; it is not evaluated, but referees and the committee can advise on it. Within 4 months after the award, a data management plan (FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable), checked by a data steward of the research organisation, is submitted in ISAAC; its approval by NWO is a condition for payment. Costs of making data available can be budgeted.

Open Access

Scientific articles must be Open Access immediately at publication, without embargo: in a fully Open Access journal or platform registered in DOAJ, through immediate deposit of at least the accepted manuscript in a repository registered in OpenDOAR, or in a journal covered by a transformative agreement of Universities of the Netherlands. At least a CC BY licence applies (CC BY-ND on request); other rules apply to books. Fees for fully Open Access journals can be budgeted as material costs; hybrid journal fees are not eligible.

• Multi-actor (required): research organisations, at least one company and at least one co-funder, with societal organisations, (vocational) educational institutions, government and (end) users strongly encouraged. Public and private partners must each play a clear and active role.
• Interdisciplinarity (required, or justified): collaboration between researchers from several scientific disciplines (humanities, natural sciences, social sciences) and/or practice-oriented fields, appropriate to the intended impact. It is scored under criteria 1 and 2; if it is not needed, this must be convincingly argued.
• Transdisciplinarity (required): co-design of the problem, the impact pathway and the research questions with all partners, co-creation during the research and co-production in applying the knowledge; scored under the consortium criterion and tested in the interview.
• SSH: no SSH partner is imposed and SSH-STEM collaboration is not mandatory, but the attention to the people who will work with the innovations, human capital and learning communities makes social science expertise relevant for many projects.

• The NWO Grant Rules 2024 and the Agreement on the Payment of Costs for Scientific Research apply.
• A consortium agreement on the NWO model must be concluded and uploaded in ISAAC before the project starts. It covers IP and publication, knowledge transfer, confidentiality, co-funding payments, progress and final reports, and the tasks of the user committee. The applicant arranges it; NWO does not sign it.
• Each co-funder confirms its contribution in the consortium agreement; the co-funding declaration applies during the assessment and, if awarded, during the whole project.
• The main applicant becomes project leader and NWO's point of contact; the main applicant's organisation is the main beneficiary and secretary. All (sub)project leaders and beneficiaries are jointly responsible for the whole project.
• Problems with expected co-funding must be reported to NWO at once; NWO may require changes through a change request.

• Annual reports by the main applicant on substantive and financial progress; NWO can request interim reports.
• Projects are invited to contribute to programme meetings organised by NWO.
• At the end, final substantive and financial reports. The final grant is set on these reports, the financial conditions and the co-funding ratio of the application budget; if cash co-funding was only partly provided, NWO's contribution is adjusted and never exceeds the original award.
• The user committee follows the project and advises on progress and direction to maximise the chance of impact; it meets at least once a year.
• NWO may approach applicants to evaluate the procedure or the programme.

Full proposal form

The form has 8 sections and 2 annexes, all in English. Use Calibri 10 pt, keep the 2.5 cm margins, the spacing and the layout colours, add no hyperlinks and no footnotes. Subheadings are allowed, but the section numbering may not change. Sections 2 to 5 together are limited to 20 pages, figures and work package descriptions included; the annexes are not counted. Before saving as PDF, remove the grey italic instructions and examples and update the table of contents. The proposal is assessed by expert referees and by a committee with academic and non-academic members.

In line with DORA, the Journal Impact Factor and the h-index may not be mentioned anywhere in the application; datasets, patents, software and code can be listed as output.

• Statements and signature (compulsory): the KIA(s) the proposal contributes to, the most relevant and second most relevant MMIP, the TRL at the start, and eight declarations to tick (applicants meet the conditions of section 3.1.1; research integrity code; all partners agree with their role; the main applicant's organisation is informed; all partners, especially co-funders, know the IP, publication and consortium agreement rules; compliance with the organisation's knowledge security policy; NWO data management policy; truthful completion). Name, place and date; no signature needed, the correctness is confirmed again in ISAAC.
• Declaration of co-funding (compulsory, one per co-funder, NWO format, signed by an authorised signatory): the co-funder endorses the proposal, commits to its contribution and to a prompt consortium agreement, agrees to be named on the NWO website, states whether the contribution is private or public and the amounts in cash and in kind (excluding VAT), and specifies each in-kind item with its price or hourly rate. Together the declarations must guarantee the full required co-funding.
• Letter guaranteeing the continuity of project supervision (if applicable): on the research organisation's letterhead, signed by the head of department, when the applicant's contract ends before the project or the funded staff.
• Research Organisation Declaration (only for the review of an organisation not listed as eligible): questions on research activity and financing, with the Chamber of Commerce extract, articles of association and latest annual accounts, sent to kic-consortia@nwo.nl at least four working weeks before the deadline.
• Budget form: the NWO Excel format (see budget template).

Details are also entered online in ISAAC, including up to three non-referees. All annexes except the budget are uploaded separately as unencrypted PDF files; any other annex, including support letters, is not permitted.

The budget is submitted in ISAAC as an Excel file, using the NWO budget form v2026.1 for this call, with the most recent rates (UNL and NFU rates of 1 July 2026, Government Tariffs Manual 2026). Only the blue fields are filled in. The Summary sheet totals the expenses by budget post and the funding by source (NWO funding, in-kind co-funding, in-cash co-funding via NWO or via the institute), and breaks down the resources and the co-funding by organisation type.

• Personnel: one position per row, with category, FTE, months, organisation type and name, and work package; bench fee of €5,000 per PhD student, postdoc, EngD and physician-researcher.
• Built-in checks: NWO funding between €1,400,000 and €7,000,000, project duration up to 72 months, research leave at most 5% of NWO funding, personnel abroad within the limit, bench fee only for eligible positions, private co-funding in cash and in kind.
• Shares computed for the co-funding rules: co-funding, private co-funding and private cash co-funding as a percentage of the total project budget.

The amounts in the work package budget tables of the proposal must match the budget form.