Assessment of applications

Applications to the fund are assessed by a research council or, for thematic funding programmes, by an ad hoc committee. The council or committee also makes the final decision on whether to award funding, based on its assessment of the applications and its prioritisation of the overall pool of applications. Here you can read about the assessment process, the assessment forms, and the principles for weighting scores in the assessment.

Assessment process

All applications to Independent Research Fund Denmark are initially subject to an administrative screening. If an application meets the fund’s requirements for substantive assessment, it is processed by the relevant research council or thematic committee responsible for assessing the applications.

Each application is assigned at least two assessors from the relevant council or committee, who carry out an initial assessment of the application based on the fund’s assessment criteria. The final assessment and decision are made by all members of the relevant council or committee at a funding meeting. If a member has a conflict of interest in relation to a particular application, they do not participate in the consideration of that application. You can see a visualisation of the process here.

Applications are sent for external assessment if a member of the relevant committee or council is an applicant or is among the other academic participants (VIP participants) in an application for more than DKK 1 million submitted to their own committee or council, or if the committee or council does not have the necessary expertise to assess a particular application.

It is always the relevant research council or thematic committee that makes the final assessment of an application and decides whether to award or reject funding.

You can read more about the fund’s assessment process on the website under 'How your application is processed' and in the relevant call for proposals.

'Assessment forms'

When assessors evaluate an application, they do so using the fund’s 'assessment forms'. The fund has two assessment forms: one for internal assessors and one for external assessors.

Internal assessors assess the application against all 4-5 categories of assessment criteria set out in the call, while external assessors assess the application against a smaller selection of the criteria, focusing primarily on the scientific quality of the project.

Based on the scores awarded in the assessment, the fund calculates a weighted average score. You can read about the principles below.

You can download the form below.

See internal pre-assessment form (in Danish)

Principles for weighting scores in the assessment

When the fund’s assessors evaluate applications, they assign a score to each category of assessment criteria to ensure that all relevant assessment criteria are taken into account:

• Potential for originality and breakthrough
• Scientific quality and approach
• Qualifications and organisation
• Research outputs and research results
• Funding instrument or theme-specific criteria.

The fund’s assessment system calculates a weighted average of the scores given by the initial assessors. If the five categories of assessment criteria were weighted equally, each category would account for 20% (25% if no instrument- or theme-specific criteria apply). The fund has established different principles for weighting the categories, as set out below. In order to place greater or lesser emphasis on different aspects of the assessment criteria, the five categories are either overweighted (more than 20% / 25%), weighted neutrally (20% / 25%) or underweighted (less than 20% / 25%).

Three different models are used for weighting scores in the assessment (see model below):

• Ordinary funding instruments: DFF-Research Project1, DFF-Research Project2, Non-university Research Education (PhD), Pre-graduate Scholarships and Journals.
  The potential for originality and breakthrough, as well as scientific quality, is given greater weight. The instrument-specific criteria do not directly contribute to the scoring.
• "Talent programmes": DFF-Research Leader: Sapere Aude, the Inge Lehmann Programme and DFF-International Postdoctoral Grant.
  Here too, greater weight is given to the potential for originality and breakthrough, but the weights are adjusted slightly downward to allow the specific instrument criteria to be included in the scoring. The purpose is to support funding instruments with a distinct profile, where an application may to a greater or lesser extent fulfil the particular focus of the instrument. For Sapere Aude, this includes an additional focus on researchers who have performed at the top of their field, as well as the instrument’s aim of promoting career development, mobility and research leadership. For the Inge Lehmann Programme, the focus is on the applicant’s career profile and their potential to develop as an independent research leader.
• Thematic funding programmes: All calls for thematic research funding.
  The theme-specific criteria set out in the calls are given slightly greater weight.

See the overview of the weighting of the fund’s funding instruments, as adopted by the Fund’s Board in 2026: