NWO Open Competition Domain Science – XL round 2025–2026

NWO Open Competition Domain Science – XL round 2025–2026 is sponsored by NWO (Dutch Research Council). This grant supports curiosity-driven fundamental scientific research with impact, specifically for consortia.

Open Competition Domain Science–XL round 2025–2026 | NWO The Open Competition Domain Science (ENW)–XL grants are aimed at curiosity-driven fundamental scientific research with impact. The ENW–XL grants offer consortia the opportunity to establish, strengthen, and/or expand world-class, ground-breaking, challenging, and innovative lines of research (mono-, multi-, or interdisciplinary) within the research areas of the Domain Science.

Collaboration in consortia through coordinated consolidation of strengths and areas of expertise creates added value compared to smaller individual projects. For this Call for proposals, your (pre-)proposal must fit within the NWO Domain Science. Consider at an early stage if the subject of your (pre-)proposal is within the Domain Science research areas.

When in doubt, please get in touch with the contact person for this programme, who can advise you about the substantive connection between your (pre-)proposal and this Call for Proposals. A consortium consists of a minimum of two applicants from different research organisations.

These applicants: are full, associate, or assistant professors, or a researcher with a comparable position, at a Dutch university, university medical centre, or NWO-approved research institute; and have a tenured position or tenure track agreement. A researcher can only be involved in one ENW‒XL (pre-)proposal in the round 2025‒2026 as main- or co-applicant.

In addition to applicants, consortium partners can be included in the consortium. Consortium partners are involved in the project but do not receive direct funding. The restrictions for applicants do not apply to consortium partners.

For a description of these and other conditions, please refer to the Call for proposals. For an ENW‒XL project, a grant amount of at least € 1,000,000 and at most € 3,000,000 can be applied for. The maximum duration of the proposed project is six years.

A minimum of four fixed-term academic positions (PhD student, postdoc) must be requested in combination with other budget modules. Budget for the following can be requested: personnel costs for PhD students, postdocs, and non-scientific personnel; investments to a maximum of € 500,000; For a description of these and other conditions, please refer to the Call for proposals.

The deadline for submitting pre-proposals is Tuesday 16th September 2025, before 14:00:00 hours CEST . The deadline for submitting full proposals is Tuesday 9th June 2026, before 14:00:00 hours CEST . The ENW‒XL call is published once every two years.

Pre-proposals are assessed against the following two criteria: Scientific quality of the proposal (What; 50%); Quality of the consortium (Who; 50%). Full proposals are assessed against the following three criteria: Scientific quality of the proposal (What; 40%); Scientific and/or societal impact (Why; 20%); Quality of the consortium (Who; 40%). The assessment will take place in two phases: pre-proposals and full proposals.

Pre-proposals are not sent out for external review, but assessed solely by cluster assessment committees consisting of (inter)national experts. The clusters are formed on the basis of the research areas stated in the pre-proposals.

NWO strives that each cluster assessment committee together harbours the expertise required to evaluate all pre-proposals in the cluster, but this also means that not every committee member is an expert on all topics in their respective cluster. As such, your pre-proposal should be sufficiently accessible to convince committee members of the quality of your pre-proposal even if they lack specific expertise in your research topic.

The cluster assessment committees select the most promising pre-proposals per cluster via a graded assessment against the assessment criteria. Based on the advice of the cluster assessment committees, the Board of the NWO Domain Science decides which proposals are invited to submit a full proposal.

IMPORTANT: you may only submit a full ENW‒XL proposal if the board the of the NWO Domain Science has decided to invite you to submit a full proposal. In the second step, the full proposals are submitted to referees for assessment. Applicants will subsequently be given the opportunity to respond in writing to the referees' reports (the rebuttal).

All consortia will be invited for an interview with one of the three assessment committees. Subsequently, these assessment committees rank the proposals via a graded assessment against the assessment criteria and advise the board of the NWO Domain Science about the quality of the proposals. Based on this advice and the available funding, the board decides which proposals are awarded.

Committee composition assessment pre-proposals Please note: not all committee members listed on this page have assessed all pre-proposals. Pre-proposals are assessed in clusters, and the NWO Code of Conduct for Personal Interests applies. Please contact the coordinator of the round in case you have any questions.

Prof. Marco Ajmone Marsan Prof. Stéphanie Blanquet-Diot Prof. Eva-Liisa Eskelinen Prof. Concha Gonzalez-Garcia Prof. Jutta Ludwig-Müller Dr Silverio Martínez-Fernández Prof. Sandra Van Vlierberghe Responsible research data management is an essential component of good research practice. Prepare a data management plan after the grant is awarded and before the project starts.

You will find all of the documents that you need for your proposal here. Proposals must be submitted through the ISAAC application and reporting system. If you do not have an ISAAC account yet, please create one at least one workday in advance.

Below, you will find more information about writing a proposal. Please download and use the forms below or from ISAAC. Before starting with a proposal, carefully read through the Call for proposals.

A proposal consists of two parts: The scientific proposal, which consists of an abstract, a description of the proposed research, and a reference list.

In the description of the proposed research, which has a length of ten to 15 pages, you should address what the research questions are, why these are important, what the scientific and/or societal impact is, how and by whom the project will be executed, and a justification of the project budget. The basic details of the main applicant, the co-applicant(s), and other consortium partners, as well as additional administrative details.

Download the application form, the overview projects and grant applications, the budget form, and, if relevant, the statement appointment and project supervision. Write the proposal in English, save as a pdf, and upload in ISAAC. When submitting your proposal in ISAAC, you will also need to enter some details online.

Therefore, please start submitting your proposal at least one day before the deadline of this Call for proposals. The budget form must be filled out completely and submitted as an Excel file. For every proposal that is received, NWO assumes that the applicant has informed the host institution and that they accept the funding conditions of this programme.

Downloads for your application Open Competition Domain Science - XL round 2025-2026 | call for proposals Open Competition Domain Science–XL round 2025–2026 | full proposal form LaTeX Open Competition Domain Science–XL round 2025–2026 | full proposal form Open Competition Domain Science–XL round 2025–2026 | statement appointment and project supervision Open Competition Domain Science–XL round 2025–2026 | budget table Open Competition Domain Science–XL round 2025–2026 | overview projects and grant applications Open Competition Domain Science–XL round 2025–2026 | research organisation declaration Open Competition Domain Science–XL round 2025–2026 | review form Online manual grant application system ISAAC ISAAC offers applicants for research funding the possibility to track their application in the assessment process.

The funding process explained NWO has a fixed procedure for handling all applications. Learn more about how the application procedure is set up – from the moment you apply until a decision is reached. Do you already have an account in Isaac?

Have you completed the pre-proposal form? If relevant: do you have a signed statement appointment and project supervision? Life sciences and medicine