NordForsk Joins G7 Quantum Research Funding Call
NordForsk has joined a Canada-led international funding call for quantum research, alongside several of the G7’s major science agencies. Indeed, the program will back Nordic participation in up to 12 cross-border projects, at up to NOK 7 million (about $730,000) each, across quantum computing, communications, sensing, materials, and post-quantum cryptography. This is a call for proposals with a September 24 deadline.
Who can apply for the G7 quantum funding call
According to the July 28 report, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) coordinates the call and runs proposal submission and merit review. The partner agencies are also Germany’s DFG, Japan’s JST, the UK’s UKRI-EPSRC, and the US National Science Foundation, with Nordic co-funding from the research councils of Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. NordForsk announced the call on July 27 and expects to support Nordic teams in as many as 12 of the resulting international collaborations.
The eligibility rules are where the structure shows. Every proposal needs at least one Canadian researcher eligible for NSERC funding plus an international collaborator backed by another participating agency, and the Canadian applicant submits a single joint proposal for the whole consortium. Teams seeking NordForsk money must include partners from at least two Nordic countries, with the host institution based in Denmark, Finland, Norway, or Sweden, and additional partners allowed from Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Åland. NSERC will hold an information webinar on August 19 ahead of the September 24 deadline.
What this funding announcement means
Meanwhile, you should read the numbers as limits on a competition that hasn’t run. The 12 projects and the NOK 7 million are ceilings, not commitments, and no researcher has been funded on the strength of this announcement. The call’s framing of quantum as an increasingly important force in security and economic development is standard language from the agencies, not a new claim.
What the call does show is how national quantum programs keep reaching across borders, the same instinct behind Finland bolting a quantum machine onto its LUMI supercomputer and the funding drawing investors to Finnish hardware startups like SemiQon. It sits inside a wider surge of public money, from US executive orders on a 2028 clock to the Energy Department’s fault-tolerant push, and it puts post-quantum cryptography on the eligible-topics list at the same moment those algorithms are entering international standards.