Open Call: Research Hosting 2024

Applications are now open for Art Hub Copenhagen’s mentoring and research hosting program 2024. The program is for applicants to the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s PhD grants in practice-based research for artists and curators. The deadline is 12 February 2024 at 2:00 PM.

As a part of our commitment to support practice-based researchers, Art Hub Copenhagen (AHC) offers mentoring and research hosting for applicants to the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s PhD grants in artistic and curatorial research.

The Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) is the main funding source in Denmark for practice-based PhD grants. Every year, the NNF sponsors one fully funded three-year PhD grant for an artistic researcher, and one fully funded PhD Grant for a curatorial researcher.

For our mentoring and research hosting program, AHC selects a maximum of six applicants to the NNF’s PhD grants in practice-based research. The selection is made by a jury consisting of two external members and one member from AHC’s team. The jury aims to select research proposals that are original and artistically relevant, and applicants who are considered suitable for admission to an academic context and AHC’s research program.

WHAT WE OFFER

AHC’s mentoring and research hosting program focuses on preparing your research project and designing your application to the NNF. Your application to the mentoring and research hosting program is the first point of departure in this process.

AHC’s mentoring and research hosting program consists of online or physical meetings during the spring and autumn of 2024. Each successful applicant will have three meetings (feedback sessions) focusing on their application and research project.

Successful applicants will thus have two individual feedback meetings with AHC’s Head of Art and Research, Lars Bang Larsen, and one collective feedback session with an invited external respondent. The external respondent will typically be a scholar who is an expert in the specific research area; each applicant is involved in deciding who to appoint as external respondent. Furthermore, the session with the external respondent is open and mandatory for the other applicants to participate in.

The individual and collective feedback sessions focus on the research topic and the methodical, analytical, critical, and thematic aspects proposed for the research, and on the integration of the project’s practice-based dimension. In this way the mentoring process aims to create a thorough reflection and discussion of each applicant’s research project, with the purpose of optimising their application design and the preparation of their project for submission to the NNF.

In case the application to this open call is successful, the applicant is offered   institutional hosting at AHC, which is a precondition for applying to the NNF’s grants in practice-based research. Read more about this below “requirements for participants”.

REQUIREMENTS FOR PARTICIPANTS

• Participants in AHC’s research hosting and mentoring program must agree to share their application with the other PhD applicants in the group. Applications will be shared in advance of the collective feedback sessions.
• Participants are expected to take part in each other’s collective feedback sessions with external respondents and engage in peer-to peer feedback.
• All research at AHC follows the Danish Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Read the guidelines here.
• The precondition for being hosted at AHC as a PhD candidate is to be actively present at AHC and to contribute to our research environment (except for periods with relevant research trips and stays abroad). This will be a condition of continued funding of the project. If you are not domiciled in Denmark, we ask you to attach a plan for how you intend to schedule your project, so that you can be in Copenhagen for 50% of the time. Non-EU applicants should study relevant visa, tax, and work permit conditions before they begin the application process, as we cannot offer advice on this matter.

Failure to comply with these requirements can lead to expulsion from the mentoring and research hosting program.

INSTITUTIONAL HOSTING: THE PROCESS FOR APPLYING TO A PRACTICE-BASED PHD AT THE NOVO NORDISK FOUNDATION (NNF)

The NNF has a deadline for applications to their practice-based PhD grants at the beginning of January every year. Two separate agreements for institutional hosting are required to apply for a PhD grant from the NNF: one hosting agreement from an art institution, and one from a Danish university.

If your application for mentoring and hosting at AHC is successful, you will have AHC as your artistic host institution. You must subsequently apply for advance approval of hosting from a Danish university, too, before applying for funding from NNF. Application deadlines for hosting at Copenhagen and Aarhus University respectively are usually in November. It is the responsibility of the applicant to apply for university hosting.

Only Danish universities can award the PhD degree for recipients of the NNF’s PhD grants in practice-based research. This means that a PhD candidate granted funding from NNF is employed at an art institution (in this case AHC) but registered as a PhD researcher at a Danish university. In practice, this entails that the researcher has their workplace at AHC and engages in everyday activities here, but at the same time is closely affiliated with a university. The affiliation with the university also involves teaching and mandatory PhD courses, and that the principal supervisor on the PhD project is from the university.

AHC cooperates primarily with the Department for Art and Cultural Studies at Copenhagen University and the Department for Communication and Culture at Aarhus University.

Approval for hosting at a university:
When you apply for advance approval of hosting from the university where you seek to register, the research council of the university in question reviews the application and the applicant’s CV. If the university approves of the application, the applicant will have academic hosting in case of a successful outcome of the NNF application.

NB: Copenhagen University notes that candidates who have received a special subject grade of less than 7 cannot be considered as a PhD candidate. Similarly, holding an MA degree (or equivalent experience) is necessary to be accepted as a PhD candidate at a Danish University.

The PhD application to the NNF:
PhD applicants who have received advance approval of hosting at AHC and from a Danish university can then apply to the NNF to fund their projects in January 2025. The applicant is responsible for submitting the final application to the NNF. AHC has no influence on the final selection of research projects: only the NNF’s funding committee decides which projects are granted funding by the NNF. The candidate(s) selected to receive a PhD grant by the NNF will be appointed as PhD candidate(s) at AHC and at the university from where they have received advanced approval of hosting.

HOW TO APPLY

To apply, you must complete this application form (right-click on link and select “open link in new tab”, select download. The form is a Word file). The form must be completed in English and sent together with a CV of max. two A4 pages, plus a visual portfolio of max. three A4 pages that supports the PhD proposal. The three documents must be compressed in a combined PDF file of max. 5 MB.

The application should be sent to ansogning@arthubcopenhagen.dk
Please write “Art Hub Research Hosting 2024” in the subject field.

The DEADLINE for the submission of application is 12 FEBRUARY 2024, at 2:00 PM.

AHC values diversity highly. We therefore encourage everyone regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, and identity to apply.

It will unfortunately not be possible for us to send motivations for refusals of applications.

Any questions can be addressed to Project Manager Fafaya Mogensen at fm@arthubcopenhagen.dk