Carlsberg Foundation Autumn Call 2026: Basic Research Grants and Fellowships in Denmark

Carlsberg Foundation Autumn Call 2026: Basic Research Grants and Fellowships in Denmark

The Carlsberg Foundation’s Autumn Call 2026 was a portfolio of competitive grants for independent basic research. Its published call notice gave a common closing date of 1 September 2026. That date has passed, and the 2026 application window is closed. This page is a historical guide to the round and is not an invitation to submit an application now.

The Foundation’s applicant overview is headed “Calls in open competition 2022–2026.” Its “Upcoming calls” section lists individual 2027 instruments, including Semper Ardens Accelerate, Monograph Fellowships, Research Infrastructure, Digital Research Infrastructure and Field Trips / Research Stays with 1 September 2027 deadlines, plus Internationalisation Fellowships with a 1 April 2027 deadline. The overview also lists Semper Ardens Advance for 1 September 2028. Those are separate scheme calls, not an announced Autumn Call 2027 portfolio. The Foundation has not published a new umbrella Autumn Call announcement or a consolidated 2027 portfolio. There is therefore no confirmed replacement deadline, total award amount, or set of umbrella-call instructions to put in this record. The 2026 deadline remains in the deadline field because it is the real date for this archived round; readers seeking an active grant should use the Foundation’s applicant overview and the exact scheme page for an individually announced call.

The Foundation described the competition as open to researchers at all career stages who had a strong connection to Danish research. The eligible research fields were natural sciences, humanities and social sciences, with no additional thematic restriction across the call. Applicants proposed their own scientific questions; the Foundation emphasized scientific quality and the potential for long-term value to society. The individual instruments served different career stages and research needs, so the broad portfolio description did not replace instrument-specific eligibility rules.

At a glance

The date change mattered for planning: the Foundation announced that, beginning with this round, the annual research-funding deadline would move from 1 October to 1 September. The call notice was published on 29 May 2026. It also announced a webinar about the instruments, guidelines, assessment process and criteria for 24 June. These were preparation milestones for the now-closed round, not future dates for applicants. The Foundation also published assessment information for the 2026 Semper Ardens process. Those arrangements belonged to the closed round and do not establish a schedule for a later competition. Applicants considering a future call should rely on its own published assessment process.

Instruments included in the 2026 portfolio

The Foundation listed seven routes. Semper Ardens Advance supported visionary research projects led by established professors or research teams. Semper Ardens Accelerate was aimed at newly appointed associate professors consolidating independent research groups or environments. These were the senior and mid-career leadership routes within the Semper Ardens family, and the Foundation stated that expert panels would assess Semper Ardens applications in four broad areas: physical sciences, life sciences, social sciences and humanities.

Research Infrastructure supported equipment or apparatus needed for research. Digital Research Infrastructure covered digital resources such as research databases and related infrastructure. These routes address resource needs rather than simply providing a general project grant: an application needed to explain what research capability the requested resource would make possible and why that resource fit the selected scheme. The Foundation maintained separate instrument guidance, so applicants needed to distinguish physical equipment from digital resources and follow the relevant budget rules.

Monograph Fellowships supported scholarly book projects. Reintegration Fellowships provided postdoctoral support for researchers returning to a Danish research environment after a research stay abroad. The call notice said this was the final Autumn Call in which Reintegration Fellowships would be offered as a separate instrument. Starting in 2027, postdoctoral fellowships that combine an international research stay with a later reintegration period were to be applied for through Internationalisation Fellowships.

Field Trips / Research Stays supported eligible research travel abroad or stays at international research institutions. The Foundation’s scheme pages distinguish larger-budget requests made through the autumn call from a separate all-year route for smaller budgets. Applicants needed to select the route and budget category that applied to their plan, then follow the associated scheme conditions.

Amount and award structure

There was no single award amount for the Autumn Call 2026 as a whole. It assembled instruments with different durations, eligible costs and scales: multi-year research grants, postdoctoral fellowships, a monograph fellowship, infrastructure funding, and travel or research-stay support. The award ceiling or calculation depended on the instrument and its approved budget, rather than on a shared portfolio-wide sum.

The Foundation’s applicant overview lists upcoming individual schemes for 2027, including scheme-level summaries and amounts. Those entries are not a new umbrella Autumn Call announcement and do not replace the 2026 terms. They should not be copied backward as the award terms for applications submitted to the 2026 competition. Readers who need the exact 2026 amount for an individual instrument should consult that round’s saved guidelines or contact the Foundation; the umbrella announcement did not publish a single total or a consolidated budget table. This page therefore identifies the distinct forms of support without presenting later-cycle figures as confirmed 2026 terms.

Who the call served

At portfolio level, the closed 2026 call welcomed researchers from postdoctoral level through professorial level, provided they had a strong connection to Danish research. It was intended for basic-research questions in the natural sciences, humanities and social sciences. The open thematic scope did not mean that every applicant could use every instrument: each route had its own career profile, host requirements, project purpose and allowable costs. The broad description is specific to the completed 2026 competition; the 2027 scheme pages set out eligibility for their own upcoming calls and should be checked individually.

The Semper Ardens schemes were oriented to research leadership and independent research environments. The infrastructure routes were for applicants who could show a clear research need for physical or digital resources. Monograph Fellowships were intended for scholarly book work. Reintegration Fellowships addressed the return-to-Denmark stage of a postdoctoral research path, while Field Trips / Research Stays addressed international research activity. Each applicant had to match the proposed activity to the purpose of the chosen instrument.

The Foundation’s general description included researchers from abroad when they were connected to Danish research. That connection alone was not sufficient to establish eligibility for every scheme. Host institution, appointment type, career stage and employment conditions were tested under the individual instrument rules. The exact scheme guidance for the 2026 call was therefore essential, especially for applicants whose position, host or project crossed institutional or national boundaries.

How applications were handled

Applications for the 2026 instruments were submitted through CF-Grant, the Foundation’s application system. The official scheme instructions required applicants to use the designated instrument route and to follow its formal requirements. The Foundation warns that an application submitted under the wrong grant type or containing material outside the specified requirements may be declared inadmissible. This round is closed. Current pages for individual schemes describe later calls where marked upcoming, so their current checklists are not a verbatim record of every 2026 attachment rule. No new umbrella Autumn Call application steps have been announced.

For a historical reconstruction, the practical sequence was:

1. Select the instrument by purpose and career stage. Compare the seven routes and use the 2026 scheme guidance to test appointment, host and project fit before preparing a full proposal.
2. Confirm the host arrangements. Ask the administering institution whether it met the selected instrument’s definition and could provide any required host declaration, employment confirmation or administrative support.
3. Prepare the project and budget together. Build a research plan around the scheme’s stated purpose, then map each requested cost to an eligible activity. Infrastructure, fellowships, monographs and international travel have different cost structures.
4. Use the scheme’s forms and document checklist. The Foundation’s applicant pages provide application requirements, including supporting documents and formatting rules. Those details are scheme-specific. The 2026 version of the guidance, rather than a later call page, controls what was required for the closed round.
5. Submit in CF-Grant by the published closing time. Complete the online form, attach the requested documents in the stated format, check the assembled submission for missing or unreadable material and retain the confirmation. Submissions for this round are no longer accepted.

The exact document package was not uniform across the portfolio. Depending on the instrument, applicants would need to prepare items such as a project description, budget, CV, publications record and institutional documentation. Some routes required additional material tailored to a research group, monograph, infrastructure request, returning researcher or international activity. This is why the scheme checklist mattered: a generic list is not a reliable substitute for the instrument’s official rules.

Planning and proposal fit

The call’s wide subject scope put the responsibility on applicants to explain the research question clearly. A strong basic-research proposal would define what is not yet known, what evidence or approach could resolve the uncertainty, and why the question matters to the field. For open-ended research, the application needed to make the intellectual case without pretending that the outcome was already predictable.

The choice of instrument was part of that case. A group-building grant should make leadership, project organization and the proposed research environment intelligible. An infrastructure request should show which investigations depend on the resource and how it would be used. A monograph fellowship should make the book’s scholarly contribution and work plan credible. A reintegration proposal should explain how the researcher’s return would connect to a Danish host environment. A travel or research-stay request should connect the destination and activity to the project. These are distinct arguments, not interchangeable versions of a general research statement.

Applicants also had to coordinate the scientific plan with institutional and financial preparation. Host confirmations, equipment estimates, access arrangements and travel plans can require lead time. For any future competition, those materials should be assembled only after checking the live instrument page and current call document, since the Foundation may revise rules between rounds. The 2026 call is no longer accepting applications, so this preparation advice is relevant only as a record of how the round was structured or as background for later calls.

What followed the 2026 call

The 2026 portfolio announcement was an invitation for that year’s competition, not a standing annual application form. The Foundation’s applicant overview presents a set of upcoming calls, including individual 2027 schemes with their own opening schedules, eligibility details and guidelines. The portfolio-level Autumn Call for the next cycle has not been announced on the Foundation’s news page as of this review. A researcher looking for an active opportunity should start from the applicant overview and open the exact scheme page; the 2026 deadline on this page is intentionally retained as the date of the archived round.

One structural change is particularly relevant to postdoctoral applicants. Reintegration Fellowships were offered separately for the last time in the 2026 autumn call. From 2027, the Foundation said that postdoctoral support combining an international research stay and a subsequent reintegration period would be incorporated into Internationalisation Fellowships. Applicants should therefore not reuse a 2026 Reintegration Fellowship application plan without checking how the later scheme is framed.

Official sources

• Autumn Call 2026 announcement — scope, deadline, instrument list, deadline change and Reintegration Fellowship transition.
• Carlsberg Foundation applicant overview — open and upcoming individual calls; check the selected scheme page for its current application details.
• Carlsberg Foundation News & Press Releases — the current news listing includes updates through 25 September 2026 and still identifies Autumn Call 2026 as the umbrella call announcement; the separate 2027 scheme listings appear in the applicant overview.
• Processing procedures — Semper Ardens — 2026 panel process, interview schedule and decision timing.
• Semper Ardens Advance
• Semper Ardens Accelerate
• Research Infrastructure
• Digital Research Infrastructure
• Monograph Fellowships
• Reintegration Fellowships
• Field Trips / Research Stays

For administrative questions, the Foundation lists [email protected]. The central facts for this archived entry are simple: Autumn Call 2026 covered seven distinct instruments for basic research, the deadline was 1 September 2026, and applications are now closed. Any later opportunity must be checked against its own official announcement and scheme guidelines.