FRIPRO — Free Investigator-Driven Research

FRIPRO — Radical Research Ideas (Early Career Scientists)

Funds early-career Norwegian researchers exploring radical ideas through short high-risk experimental grants.

FRIPRO Radical Research Ideas for Early Career Scientists is administered by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) under the FRIPRO portfolio of investigator-driven, ground-breaking research. It is the smallest of the five FRIPRO subcalls with a total pool of NOK 50 million, yet it is the most accessible by award size: individual grants run from NOK 500,000 to NOK 2,000,000. Project duration is deliberately short, between 4 and 12 months, reflecting the programme's purpose of funding rapid, exploratory tests of genuinely radical and unproven research ideas rather than full research programmes.

Eligibility is restricted to approved Norwegian research organisations — universities, university colleges, and research institutes on RCN's approved list. Companies cannot participate as partners; they may only be engaged as subcontractors. The call is explicitly designed for early-career researchers who need support to test high-risk hypotheses without the burden of extensive preliminary data. Applicants must score 6 or 7 on all evaluation criteria to be eligible for funding. A one-year waiting period applies for project managers between consecutive submissions. The call operates on a rolling intake with no fixed annual deadline.

The 2024 FRIPRO success rate across all subcalls was 21%, giving applicants a realistic benchmark. Because this subcall covers all scientific disciplines, competition is cross-disciplinary. The strongest applications present a clearly articulated radical hypothesis, explain why conventional funding routes are inappropriate, and outline a concrete 4–12 month exploration plan. Researchers who obtain Radical Ideas funding frequently use the results as preliminary data to support subsequent full FRIPRO Researcher Project applications within the same rolling programme structure.