Call: Prequalification for Mads Øvlisen PhD Fellowship Applications 2025

Klik her for at se opslaget på dansk

The PhD School of the Royal Danish Academy is inviting applications for prequalification for an upcoming fellowship opportunity: the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s 2025 Mads Øvlisen PhD fellowships in art history and practice-based research.

This pre-qualification process amounts to an idea phase, which could result in an actual PhD application to the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

The purpose of the fellowships is to provide talented graduates with the opportunity to pursue a career within the fields of art-historical and practice-based research into art, thereby supporting the highest level of development of these fields in Denmark.

Applicants can apply for a PhD fellowship within the field of research into pre- or post-1900 art history, or within the field of practice-based research into art or curation. The fellowships are of three years’ duration.

The Novo Nordisk Foundation is expected to publicise their call for 2025 in November 2024. The call will resemble that for the last round of applications, which, together with the application guidelines, can be found here: https://novonordiskfonden.dk/grant/mads-oevlisen-ph-d-stipendier-i-kunsthistorisk-og-praksisbaseret-forskning-2023/

For the final applications, Novo Nordisk applies the following evaluation criteria:

• The quality, originality and methodology of the project.
• The academic qualifications of the applicant.
• For practice-based projects: the artistic/curatorial dimension and realisation of the project.
• The likelihood of the project’s realisation, incl. supervision and relevance within the research environment of the host institution.

Schedule and Process

1st of November Prequalification deadline (the Academy’s deadline)

Together with a future supervisor (if any), the heads of institute select a number of students who could be assured of supervision, if the applications were awarded a grant, prior to the Novo deadline.

End-November Feedback to the applicants, including the allocation of a supervisor.

November(?) Publication of the Mads Øvlisen call on the website of the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

January 2025 The PhD Committee approves the final applications with a view to advance commitment to enrolment and hosting in the event that the applicant secures a grant from Novo.

January 2025 The Novo Nordisk Foundation application deadline

The Application

The preliminary application for pre-qualification must contain the following documents:

• Motivation letter – no more than one page.
• A project description – no more than two pages. The project description must include the following: research question/hypothesis, purpose of the research/interest, state-of-the-art, theory and method.
• CV.
• List of publications (if any).

It is not necessary to submit a budget or other supporting documents with your application to the PhD School of the Royal Danish Academy.

Given the fact that we must ensure that all applicants are assessed on equal terms and that there is a limit to the amount of time staff can devote to these applications, it is not possible for applicants to receive guidance prior to submitting their applications for pre-qualification.

If the project receives a positive response from the Academy for pre-qualification, there will be a guidance course prior to the Novo application deadline for the final applications.

The preliminary applications for pre-qualification must be submitted via the Academy’s website under ‘Vacancies’.

Application deadline(s)

12.00 noon on 1st of November 2024

Applicants can expect a response from the Academy in early December 2024.

The Novo Nordisk application deadline is expected to be in mid-January 2025,and any applicants awarded funding can expect to start their project in May 2025.

Please note! Applicants will be notified as to whether their application has progressed in the process well in advance of the Novo application deadline.

Applicants will not receive an assessment of, or any other kind of in-depth response to their applications – neither orally nor in writing.

If you have any questions about the notice, please email Ditte Dahl (Special Consultant) at [email protected]



The Royal Danish Academy is an inclusive workplace that considers diversity a strength. We therefore encourage all qualified and interested applicants to apply for the position.

About the Royal Danish Academy

The Royal Danish Academy – Architecture, Design and Conservation is an internationally recognised academy that educates professionally creative graduates to the highest level and develops new knowledge that creates value for society and the labour market. The Royal Danish Academy is a public institution under the Ministry of Higher Education and Science and has approximately 1,700 students and 350 full-time staff equivalents. Read more about the Royal Danish Academy on our website www.royaldanishacademy.com.