Call OUH Fund for Pre-graduate Stipends

Call for proposals 2nd round 2025

Round	Launch of call	Application deadline	Assessment meeting
2, 2025	12 March, 2025	8 May, 2025 (11.59 p.m; midnight)	10 June, 2025 (expected)
1, 2026	September, 2025 (date awaits)	November, 2025 (date awaits)	December, 2025 (date awaits)

Objective

“The patient first” is the core principle of OUH’s ambition in creating value for our patients. To provide the best care and treatment, retain and attract top-tier staff to the benefit of patients, OUH aims to strengthen research at the hospital. As part of this effort, OUH has allocated funding for pre-graduate stipends, marking the first step in a clear career pathway.  

Each applicant may apply for a maximum amount of DKK 60,000 for a total of six months from the OUH Fund for Pre-graduate Stipends.

Annually, a maximum of 16 stipends are available from the OUH Fund for Pre-graduate Stipends.

Requirements for applicants

Eligible applicants are pre-graduate students from all disciplines doing a research year at OUH.

Research within all health disciplines including clinical patient related research, research of epidemiology, experimental laboratory research and Health Services is covered by the OUH Pre-graduate Fund.

Both the supervisor and the pre-graduate student are asked to note the following requirements:  

Organisational requirements

• Only one application for each main supervisor will be considered for each application round.
• Main or co supervisor must be employed at OUH.
• Pre-graduate projects must have obtained approval from the Graduate School of Health Sciences at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) before the application deadline.
• The main part of the project must be carried out at Odense University Hospital or Svendborg Hospital
• The application must be approved by both the supervisor and the host department at OUH prior to submission.

Project requirements

• The pre-graduate student must be supervised in drawing up the application, securing it is well structured with a clear purpose.
• The project should be designed so that the pre-graduate student can independent manage tasks suitable for a one-year project.
• If the pre-graduate project is part of a larger research project, the pre-graduate sub-project must be well-defined and the role of the pre-graduate student specified.
• The pre-graduate student must have a significant role in the proposed research activity and the tasks and motivation of the pre-graduate student for conducting a research year and the particular research project must be clearly outlined in the application.
• The application must be submitted by the pre-graduate student.

Budget

The SDU Graduate School of Health Sciences states that financing a pre-graduate research year consists of the following options:

• 6 months of SU during the thesis semester
• 6 months of salary from a scholarship, e.g. the OUH Pre-graduate Fund or an external fund covering the period of time where a pre-graduate student must take an absence of leave from studies, and therefore cannot receive SU. If a scholarship for salary is not granted, an SDU scholarship disbursement may be applied.

Eligible costs

It is possible to apply for the following budget item from the OUH Fund for Pre-graduate Stipends:

• 6 months of salary, equivalent of DKK 60,000 for the pre-graduate student.

In the budget section step 3 in efond, please state which year a possible grant from the OUH pre-graduate Fund is to be applied for:

• Year 1 = 2025
• Year 2 = 2026

If the grant is to be split between two years, the number of months must be specified for each year.

Non-eligible costs

It is not possible to apply for e.g. the following budget items from the OUH Fund for Pre-graduste stipends:

• Salary for other researchers (SCS in English and VIP in Danish)
• Co-financing of non-scientific staff (NSS in English, TAP in Danish)
• Purchase of apparatus or operating expenses.
• Overhead due to the fact that the OUH Fund for Pre-graduate Stipends is a local fund.

External funding

The applicant must apply for funding of the pre-graduate project from at least two external foundations. Information about which foundations the applicant has applied for or anticipate to apply for funding and for which budget headings must be included in the application.

Grants from the OUH Fund for Pre-graduate Stipends must be reimbursed if funding for salary is received from elsewhere.

Funding from both the OUH Pre-graduate Fund and an SDU scholarship disbursement is not permitted.

Budget assistance

The OUH Research Support offers instructions on how to draw up a budget. If you request assistance, please contact reg.forskerservice@rsyd.dk.

Assessment criteria

Applications are being assessed according to the following criteria:

• The applicant
  • Motivation for carrying out and role in a pre-graduate research project
  • Qualifications – e.g. relevant classes in medical school, previous research experience, student job
• Scientific quality of the project (primary assessment criterion)
  • Clear hypothesis and suitable method(s)
  • Feasibility of the project
  • The suitability of the project as a pre-graduate project
• Research environment
  • Suitability of the research environment for carrying out the project and educating a pre-graduate student
• Strategic considerations
  • Relevance of the project for the Research Strategy 2021 – 2025 of OUH and the Department of Clinical Research, SDU
  • Involvement of patients and relatives in the pre-graduate project (see “Considerations” below) or explanation if it is not deemed relevant
  • Information about how the entire pre-graduate research year is (expected to be) financed including applications for external funding.

How to submit an application

You must submit your application via the application system efond. Please read and comply with the instructions given in efond and attach the following appendices in PDF format: 

• Signed approval from both Head of Department and Head of Research at OUH stating that the project can be carried out at OUH.
• Signed approval of the project from the SDU Graduate School of Health Sciences.
• Transcript of grades from the pre-graduate student’s Master’s degree programme.
• Brief CV (max two pages in total) for the main supervisor including
  • number of former and current pre-graduate students, 
  • lists of supervisor’s 10 most relevant publications in the past five years.
• Brief CV (max two pages in total) for co-supervisors from OUH, if the main supervisor is not employed at OUH.
• Time schedule for your pre-graduate project.
• If the pre-graduate project is part of a larger project, a Gantt chart, timeline or similar showing how the goals of the pre-graduate project are placed in the overall project.If the pre-graduate student has already started the pre-graduate project, in step 2 of efond, please include a progression report describing obtained milestones, etc.

You will receive a confirmation by email from “efond” if your application is submitted correctly (please check your spam filter if you do not receive an email).

Language

Your application must be written in English. However, please note that the layman’s summary and the section regarding involvement of patients must be written in Danish.

Rejection of applications

Please note that an application may be rejected on an administrative basis if approvals from an OUH department and SDU are not included and if a minimum of two external foundations have not been or will not be applied for funding.

Assessment procedure

The submitted applications will be reviewed and prioritised by the committee of the OUH Fund for Pre-graduate Stipends at an assessment meeting.

All applicants will receive notice of the outcome of the application approximately two weeks after the assessment meeting.

Considerations

Patients are members of the assessment committee and will review the applications alongside other committee members. The primary focus of the patients is on the layman’s summary and description of patient involvement, why these parts must be understandable to a non-specialist.

Consequently, the layman’s summary in Danish should:

• be drawn up without applying technical terms and abbreviations and be a simple and accessible description of the project.
• in the first paragraph address the research question, its applicability  including number of patients, and the need for solving the problem.
• contain purpose and hypothesis.
• address non-specialists.
• contain information about expected outcome (quantify the impact if possible).
• be read by a non-health professional prior to submitting the application.

Involvement of patients and their relatives

Please note that involvement of patients in the project does not equal treatment of patients.

Involving patients and relatives in the research process can help to ensure that the research focuses on the most important topics and issues from a patient perspective. Involvement by patients and relatives should be enhanced where it contributes the most value for the individual project and thus the value of the project to patients and society as a whole.

It is important to describe considerations about patient and relative involvement in the application. The involvement can take place throughout the entire research process – from the planning of the project to dissemination of the results that are generated. The main purpose of health research is obtaining results that will be beneficial for patients.

Examples of how and when patients and relatives can be involved:

• Clarification of research questions, outcome goals
• Reading the application – especially Danish sections (layman’s description, descriptions to Ethical Committee of Science)
• Dissemination of research results

Please find more inspiration at the ForSa-P (in Danish), VIBIS (in Danish) or NIHS in the UK.

Questions and contact information

Please forward questions to ouh.forskning@rsyd.dk.