Are you a researcher or student at the Faculty of Medicine or Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences with an innovative idea? Or are you wondering if you have an idea? If so, you have come to the right place to get advice and help.
We help researchers and students to mature early-stage ideas. We provide tailored guidance, seed funding, meeting places, student innovation programme and more.
To reach out to us, please read about our services below and then fill out the form in Norwegian or English. Requests are read continually by our innovation advisers. They will normally get back to you within five working days. All employees in the Growth House have a duty of confidentiality.
Open door with low-threshold services
The UiO Growth House is an open door for researchers and students who are formally associated with the University of Oslo (UiO); managers and administrative staff at UiO who support innovative researchers; and existing and new external partners in life sciences, health and technology.
Tailored guidance
When you contact us through the webform, our innovation advisers will give you guidance based on your needs. For example, they can help you:
- to assess the maturity and relevance of your idea, and whether guidance from mentors or others could be useful for the project; and to assess your thoughts on the way forward, and more
- to decide whether your project could benefit from seed funding from us, and how this funding could be used
- to decide if you need support to apply for external funding to mature your idea
- to decide whether you should apply for admission to UiO:Life Science's innovation programme SPARK Norway or SPARK Social Innovation
- to decide whether you could benefit from collaborating with others within our innovation ecosystem. We will help you get in touch with relevant businesses and other actors that your project may benefit from.
- to decide which of our meeting places, seminars and competence courses it could be useful for you to attend
Funding
Call seed funding for UiO researchers
Call aimed at faculty staff, clinicians, postdocs, and PhD students) who are (i) employed at the University of Oslo (UiO) and (ii) have an innovative idea, or are working on an early-stage technology or service may apply for seed funding from us.
- In 2024 NOK 1.3 million was granted through the UiO Growth House seed funding call.
A new call will be out in 2025. - The UiO Growth House also manages the call for the UiO innovation funds 2024. NOK 5 million is allocated in this call.
The application deadline was 2 September 2024.
Ongoing seed funding for researchers and students
Note that both researchers and students may also receive seed funding (around NOK 10 000–150 000) from us on an ongoing basis as a part of the tailored guidance described above if this is required to accelerate the development of the idea. The UiO Growth House has dedicated NOK 1.5M annually for this on a first come first served basis. Please fill out this webform to get in touch with our innovation advisers.
Reporting requirements funding
At the end of the funding period, the main applicant must submit a short report to the Growth House using our online reporting form.
Innovation hangouts for academia and industry
We organise quarterly afternoon/evening innovation hangouts. This is an informal meeting place where students and researchers from UiO can interact with actors from the public sector, hospitals, companies, mentors, business clusters and incubators within our innovation ecosystem. We provide inspirational talks, talks from role models, matchmaking, food and beverages, and mingling.
Other meeting places and courses are developed as needed.
The School of Health Innovation
The UiO Growth House is in charge of the School of Health Innovation at the University of Oslo. Since the start in 2016, more than 350 young health science researchers have received training in health innovation through the school.
Aleap bootcamp
The UiO Growth House collaborate with the health incubator Aleap and the technology transfer office Inven2 where researchers learn about the path from idea to market with topics within value proposition development, regulatory process and intellectual property strategy, fundraising, organizational governance and pitching.
Services for students
There you can read about our student innovation programme Co-Create, funding opportunities, internship and makerspace.
Guide for start-ups
The University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital have, together with their technology transfer office Inven2, made a guide for employees who are considering starting a company based on work results. The aim is to stimulate increased value creation through the establishment of new companies based on research results.