STUD-ENT entrepreneurial culture

We are offering funding through STUD-ENT Entrepreneurship Culture to strengthen student innovation and entrepreneurial culture at universities and university colleges across Norway.
Tre studenter som sitter sammen og gjør skolearbeid
© Getty Images
Service type
Call for proposals
Target group
Norwegian universities and university colleges
Application deadline
Expired
How much
Varies. See 'About the funding amount' below

Norwegian universities and university colleges with projects aimed at students who aspire to start their own business. These may include activities and initiatives for students studying subjects with significant potential for innovation, such as health, ICT, energy and sustainability.

Established companies cannot be the target group for the project's activities, but they can contribute experience and knowledge that benefit the students. We will prioritise projects that promote greater collaboration and the exchange of experience between Norwegian universities and university colleges and/or between organisations.

We do not prioritise grants for the operation of existing projects. This means that applicants must demonstrate the need their project will meet and how it differs from existing services. Projects should aim to support the development of services and products that can continue beyond the project period.

The aim is to encourage more high-quality STUD-ENT applications to us.

Examples of activities we can support:

  • Sharing experiences between previous STUD-ENT recipients or other entrepreneurs and resource persons who can help promote good role models and a culture of sharing.
  • Activities to encourage more students to start their own business.
  • Guidance and support for students who want to test their entrepreneurial skills by starting their own business.
  • Test new working methods and activities that strengthen student innovation.
  • Activities that help build strong STUD-ENT teams, preferably across different fields of study.

Events and gatherings that help share good practice and highlight positive role models.

We fund up to 50 per cent of the project costs. The total funding available under this call is NOK 3 million.

You must ensure that the application has clear support within your organisation and forms part of your strategic efforts to strengthen the entrepreneurial culture and ecosystem for student innovation. We will assess the application as a whole, with particular emphasis on whether the projects:

  • help promote student innovation and a culture of entrepreneurship at Norwegian universities and university colleges
  • has clearly defined objectives for the activities to improve the quality of STUD-ENT projects and help increase the number of STUD-ENT projects eligible for funding
  • help ensure that STUD-ENT projects span a broad and diverse range of disciplines
  • contributes to sharing experience and expertise across organisations and/or institutions
  • helps increase diversity and the proportion of women involved in student entrepreneurship and student innovation
  • enables new activities that would not otherwise take place
  • involves project participants with relevant expertise and a strong ability to deliver
Key conditions for funding

To receive services from us, your company must uphold the principles of responsible business conduct and actively consider its own sustainability risks. Read more about sustainability and responsible business conduct.

State aid rules

Funding from Innovation Norway must comply with State aid rules. There are five general conditions for State aid that must be met.

The General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) is part of the State aid rules. It contains provisions that allow us to provide support to companies in various circumstances. One or more provisions may apply to each case. Read more about GBER.

Legal basis for the scheme

Our funding schemes have been notified to the EFTA Surveillance Authority, ESA. The legal basis for these notifications is available on the National Legal Basis page.

Other public funding

You must state in the application whether you have applied or intend to apply for other public funding for the project. We also determine the level of our funding based on an overall assessment of how much public funding is needed for the project to proceed.

When determining the grant amount, we therefore assume that you will not receive any other public funding, including SkatteFUNN, beyond what is stated in the application. This applies to funding for the project costs used to calculate our grant (eligible costs). If you nevertheless receive other public funding, including SkatteFUNN, after we have made our offer, and it covers the same costs, we may reduce or withdraw our grant accordingly.

This does not prevent the company from receiving other public funding for project costs other than those on which we have based our assessment.

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Frequently asked questions and answers
General information about the application process, how we assess applications, project details and the types of ideas we do not support.