Application guidelines
Eligibility and project requirements
The target group for SPARK Denmark ranges from Ph.D. students to experienced professors employed at universities or hospitals in Denmark. Researchers can apply for enrolment in the SPARK Denmark programme.
The project must be within the field of Life Science in the areas of therapeutics, diagnostics, health tech, medtech, or industrial biotech. Examples of projects could be, e.g., lead optimisation of a drug candidate for a novel target, developing a prototype for a novel medical device, or scaling up a biotechnology.
The project should be based at a Danish public research institution. If a license agreement with a company has already been established in relation to the project – or if there is IP co-owned by a company, you are however not eligible to apply.
SPARK Denmark will not cover the salary of the main applicant. Applicants may apply for funding salary for research assistance, employees, or project consultants at all staffing levels, including project management (e.g., technical and administrative assistance). Salary costs must not exceed 50% of the total budget.
SPARK projects will be selected based on the following criteria:
- addressing an unmet need
- offering a novel solution
- commercial potential
- plans towards commercialisation
- team strengths and motivation
- feasibility for reaching one of the success criteria listed below within the enrolment period
The success criteria for SPARK projects graduating from the programme are:
- create a spin-out
- establish collaboration with the industry, such as a license agreement
- advance to clinical testing
- secure additional soft funding or investment
Submission process and required information
Applications will only be considered if submitted via the application form on this website and if all required information/templates have been uploaded as pdf.
Templates for your application:
Milestone-based funding and obligations
SPARK projects are enrolled for 24 months in the programme. However, in case there is no progress, if the set milestones are not met, or if the data generated doesn’t justify advancing the project further, project enrolment can be terminated early. This decision is made by the SPARK Management Team, based on the annual report – and/or in dialogue with the SPARK Project team.
If/when the project team establishes a company or enter another license agreement in relation to the SPARK project during the time of enrolment in the SPARK programme, the funding from SPARK will cease.
Eligible projects will become part of the SPARK Denmark programme and main applicant and/or other project team members are expected to participate in SPARK activities (regular project meetings, mentor meetings, workshops, educational seminars and webinars).