Challenge Programme

Challenge Programme — Heat and Hypertension

Supports large Danish research teams studying heat stress impacts on hypertension outcomes.

The Novo Nordisk Foundation's Challenge Programme 2027 — Heat and Hypertension theme funds large interdisciplinary research consortia to investigate the mechanisms by which extreme heat events worsen health outcomes in hypertensive patients. This call addresses a recognised public health gap: as heatwave frequency increases alongside the global prevalence of cardiovascular disease, understanding the cellular, molecular, and clinical mechanisms linking heat exposure to hypertension and cardiovascular mortality has become a strategic priority for the Foundation. Supported research may address cellular and molecular mechanisms of heat-induced CVD mortality, organ and system crosstalk during thermoregulation, antihypertensive medication effects on heat tolerance, biomarker-based risk profiling, and tailored patient management protocols during extreme heat events. Purely observational or single-discipline in-vitro approaches are explicitly out of scope.

The total budget for this call is up to DKK 150 million, available as individual consortium grants of DKK 30–75 million, each covering a fixed six-year project period. Consortia must comprise two to four research groups. The main applicant must be an independent tenured or tenure-track researcher employed at a European university, hospital, or non-profit research organisation (EU, Schengen area, or UK), and must commit at least 75% of their time to the project. At least one applicant — whether main or co-applicant — must be at least 75% employed and have their active research group based at a Danish institution. Co-applicant institutions may be located anywhere globally, and industry collaboration is permitted, though industrial partners cannot receive NNF grant funding.

The call runs in two stages. Stage 1 expressions of interest are due by 7 October 2026 at 2:00 pm Copenhagen time, with Stage 1 results announced in December 2026. Shortlisted consortia then submit a comprehensive full application, including a detailed budget, and attend an online interview with the review panel, with final funding decisions expected in June 2027. An applicant may submit only one proposal as main applicant across all four Challenge Programme 2027 calls, and a main applicant on one call may not simultaneously serve as co-applicant on another. Applications are submitted via NORMA.